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A Biblical Response to the Shooting of Charlie Kirk | The Jesus People Podcast Episode 33
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If it hasn't been made clear to you yet, we are at war in this end times move of God. The church has an enemy. And the enemy is not the shooter of Charlie Kirk. The enemy is not the liberals. The enemy are not the people on TikTok that are making fun of this death. That's not our enemy. The Bible is very clear who our enemy is. And every Christian needs to be aware of this. If you haven't noticed, things are ramping faster and faster. Why is that? Because the kingdom of God is advancing faster and faster. There's something happening and our battle is not against flesh and blood. It's going to be a temptation in these next few days, these next few weeks, to make it a battle against flesh and blood. There are things that have angered me that I've seen people say. There are things that are going to anger you that, that you're going to see people say. But make no mistake, people are not the enemy. Our battle is against principalities and spiritual forces of darkness in the unseen realm. That's what the scriptures say. And I'm telling you right now, as a Christian, you need to arm up with the mind of Christ and the full armor of God in order to withstand the schemes of the enemy that will be coming towards you. Because the enemy attacks when we're vulnerable, when you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired. And I'm pissed off right now, I'll say it. I'm mad. I'm angry. And if we don't stop and pray and ask the Holy Spirit how to respond, what we will do is we will fall into the same trap. We will fall into the territory of the enemy which seeks to what? Disunify and dehumanize and divide. That's what he does. He dehumanizes, he divides. And he wants to get us to focus on the people who did this. He used vessels. But make no mistake, our battle is not against them. And we lose when we begin to become hateful like them. Charlie Kirk was not killed because he was conservative. Charlie Kirk was assassinated because he was effective. He was effective at proclaiming truth in a world full of lies. In Jesus name he proclaimed the truth in love, and he did it with the scriptures as his backing. Now you can argue against the tone he used and all this different stuff. You can make arguments for that. What I'm saying to you is Charlie was a man of God who knew the risks and he moved boldly to proclaim the truth in a world full of lies. You see, Charlie stood for what the enemy Hates. There's a lot of political commentators out there. There's a lot of conservative voices. Why was Charlie killed? Why did the enemy choose him to take out? Well, because God hates a few things. Or I'm sorry, the enemy hates a few things. The enemy hates God, the enemy hates the truth and the enemy hates the youth. Charlie was 31 years old with a wife and two toddlers. He was assassinated because he stood for those things. And the Christians out there, we need to have the mind of Christ to know how to then respond. And luckily the Bible gives us the blueprint for how to respond. Do you realize the disciples were murdered? They were assassinated. They were martyred for their faith. And there is a playbook to this thing. There is a way that we respond in tragedy. There is a way that we respond when people hate us and they revile us. In fact, it's Jesus most famous sermon. Blessed are you when people hate you and revile you and utter all kinds of falsehood against you. Blessed are the martyrs. Guys, this is real. So I want to go through four responses of the Christian using the scriptures. The first thing that I think needs to be said is that as Christians, we move in love. The weapons of our warfare are love. Our weapon is not fire with fire. Jesus said, turn the other cheek. Jesus tells you that you actually store up treasures in heaven. You are blessed in the kingdom of God when they hate you on his account. Because guess what, they hated me first. So if people hate you, then you're doing it right. And let me speak really clearly. If you don't have people who hate you, if you don't have people that are angry at you for proclaiming the truth in Jesus name, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong because you cannot speak this. You can't speak this in a world filled with lies, a world filled with hate, a world filled with confusion, a world filled with division and not be hated because of him. And guess what? The kingdom of God advances forcefully when there's hatred, when there's persecution. This is a statistic. Where there's persecution in different countries, the gospel spreads like wildfire. You can find every single massive move of God on the globe and connect it back to persecution. What's happening in Iran right now, what's happening in China right now, what's happening in Pakistan right now. You can connect it to that and say, wow, the church is advancing and exploding because there's persecution and because Christians choose to move in love. I think sometimes we read these Bible verses as if in These Bible stories, as if they're like fiction. This happened. Jesus was whipped with a cat of nine tails to the point of near death. He was spit on. He was mocked. He had a crown of thorns slammed into his head. He had his mother watching him suffer. And if there was anyone blameless in the entire world, it was the creator of the entire world, who literally set the boundary lines of morality in their place, who put the stars in the sky, who constructed the human eye. And he's on the cross, literally pushing down on his nail, pierced hands and his nail pierced feet, suffocating to death. Excruciating pain. That word excruciating comes from out of the crucifixion. That's where that word, the root of that word, means out of the crucifixion. This was the most excruciating death a person could experience. And not only that, he's experiencing the weight of the world on his shoulders. Your sin and my sin. His disciples rejected him. They left him. They were embarrassed by him. And he gets up there on the cross suffering, and he says, father, forgive them. They know not what they do. I was at an abortion rally the other day. The Holy Spirit just popped me upside the head. As I'm watching this argument break out between a protester who's pro abortion and someone on the street that. That started arguing with them, basically, how can you be killing babies? And they're like, how can you not stand up for women's rights? And the Lord just taps me on the shoulder and he goes, I want you to look in their eyes. I want you to look in this pro abortionist's eyes. What is he fighting for? He's fighting for humanity. He's fighting, as much, as twisted as it is, he is fighting for a woman's right to choose. It's a lie. It's a lie from the pit of hell. But in his mind, he is fighting for goodness. He's been apprehended by the enemy. He's completely misguided. But his intention is love. It's crazy. I know that's hard for some people to grasp. His intention is, I want the best good for humanity. And that is a woman's right to choose. Like I said, wrong. However, what the Lord gave me a window into is, oh, my goodness. He's not the enemy. He's like me, who I've believed lies before. He's believing a big fat lie and he's marching for it. But it gave me a window into understanding. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And so I just want to encourage you. The weapons of our warfare are love, and we move in love. And every time you see a TikToker, a YouTuber, an Instagram video of people celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, the first thing to come to mind is not vengeance. The first thing to come to mind should be love, which says, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. They have no clue that they're on the wrong side, that they're operating under the power of. The influence of the. The spirit of the air right now. The spirit of the power of the air, of darkness in this world. It's completely demonic. It's completely wrong. I'm not excusing it one bit. Do not hear me. What I'm saying is how we move is like Jesus, who. If there was anybody who should have spoken up and could have been upset, it was him. And he chose to say, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And that's what we do, too. We move in love. I'll never forget one of the times in my life where I was encountered by the love of Christ and the wisdom of love was I had this lady named Carol Ward on the Jesus People podcast, and she blew my mind. Her dad was a missionary in the Philippines to. Or it might have been Indonesia to Muslims, and her classmates were the future ISIS fighters. And she watched her dad be persecuted. And at 8 years old, she said, lord, would you give me the honor of being a martyr? 8. She's like, Lord, it would be such an honor to be martyred for the gospel. Because she knew that that's the highest rank you can get in the kingdom of God. You are peak alpha in the kingdom of God. If you were martyred, and I believe Charlie Kirk is a martyr, you might disagree with me. I think he's a martyr. And Carol, she said. She kept praying that all throughout her childhood, all through her teen years, and she would ask the Lord, lord, send me where no one else wants to go. And the Lord said, not until I deal with your fear. And she said, okay, Lord, deal with my fear. Give me more faith. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. We don't deal with your fear by faith. We deal with your fear by love, because perfect love has cast out fear. And she said what she needed to learn was she needed to learn to love her enemies, and that. That actually drove out all fear. And so Carol Ward goes to South Sudan and starts. She was the. She was the OG in South Sudan during The LRA War, where Joseph Kony was kidnapping child soldiers, brainwashing them, and then having them kill people. The most demonic thing that's existed, in my opinion, in the last 20 years is what happened in South Sudan, where thousands of child soldiers were rounded up and became killing machines because they were literally being infused with demons from this demonized man. And Carol Ward goes there, and she's the first person, boots on the ground to love these demonized people. And they would pull over cars and they would rape and kill the women. And she knew this. And she's driving down a road one time and she gets pulled over by this LRA soldier. And they get in the car and she knows the drill, she knows what's about to happen. And she prays, lord, fill me with love for them. And so she starts talking to them and she knows she's about to be raped and killed. And she goes, what's your name? And he's kind of like stern at first. She goes, I'm Jacob. And she goes, oh, my goodness. Do you know there's a whole Bible story written about you? And she starts talking to these men and just becomes kind of like this school teacher, just like talking to these massive soldiers with AKs wrapped around their chest. And she starts preaching the gospel. She said it was like a four hour trip. She goes through the whole Bible with these men, and these men give their lives to Jesus. They ask her, do you know what we were about to do to you? She says, yes, I do. And they change their lives. And then they do a U turn and go back to these two men's village. Because these men said, I need you to tell my family about this. You need to tell this village about this. And the whole village gets saved because of love. If we want to see revival, it is not going to be by fighting the way the rest of the world fights. It will be through our love. And that's point number one. Number two, it will be because we do not operate in fear. Perfect love drives out fear. I've had people texting me, I've had family members texting me. Nervous. Now they're nervous for me because I speak out against these things. I speak out against many of the evils. And I have a following and I have received death threats and I have had people show up to my house. And it's real. And the thing that I came to last night is it makes sense that they are experiencing fear because they love me. But I cannot move in fear. We have got to move in boldness and we have to move in love. The love drives out the fear, and then the love propels us towards boldness. So it's time to ride. Like, it's time to go. I don't know if you're feeling this. It's time to freaking go. The time is now. The kingdom of God is advancing forcefully. If I look at the scriptures that I was praying this morning, I was asking the Lord to give me a scripture for this whole situation. And I was not thinking of this story. But he gave me Acts 14:19, where Paul was stoned. This will blow your mind. It says this, but the Jews came from Antioch in Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. Think about that getting pummeled with rocks to the point where they're like, he's dead. And then listen to what happened next. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city. Pause. What? What? He's stoned to near death. He rises up the next day. I'm sure the disciples were laying hands and praying for him. And you can just see this bloodied, bruised man. It says he rises to his feet and entered the city. Excuse me. He went back the next day. He entered the city, and he went on with Barnabas and Derby. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystrom and Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. What? How? This dude is stoned near death. He gets up the next day and goes back to the people who killed him, and he preaches the gospel. And they were now persuaded. And it says that they made many disciples. How they make many disciples? Well, they saw the boldness, they saw the bruises, they saw the bloody nose. They saw the torn clothes. That's how the gospel was preached in the Bible. When. When the. The kingdom. And then it says that the kingdom would advance. The kingdom advanced through persecution. And Paul says it, this is how the kingdom of God's going to advance. So they will hate us. They will hate you. They will hate me. If we're standing for truth, they will stone us. They will shoot us. But the way the kingdom of God advances is when we rise up to our feet, we move in love, we operate in boldness, and we go back to the very people who killed us. And we proclaim that Jesus still loves you, that he has plans and purposes for you, that he was beaten, that he was whipped, that he was mocked for your sin, that he hung on a cross, and when he said, it is finished and then died, he was talking about your sin. He was talking about that shame that you feel. He was talking about the way that you just treated me. I forgive you. Because he forgave. If we don't move in forgiveness, we miss the first principle of the gospel. Jesus forgave the people who were killing him. Not after the fact, not after he processed it with a bunch of therapists. He forgave them when they were killing him. And then Paul goes on to say, this is how the gospel advances. And he says it after he goes back to the very people that stoned him to near death and proclaims the gospel. And then revival breaks out. So you want revival to break out. It will start with your love, and it will move into your boldness. And what will the boldness do? It'll give you an ability to go back to the people who hate you, who almost killed you, and to proclaim the truth to them again, even though it got you near killed the first time. It's how we move. It's how the kingdom of God advances. The Bible says that the kingdom of God is laid ahold by forceful men. And forceful men take it this is not some mamby pamby church thing that we're doing. We are forcefully advancing the kingdom of God even if they kill us. And the third thing we do as Christians is we do not water down the truth. It's gonna be very easy to move in fear. It's gonna be very easy to cower. And it's gonna be very easy to stop and be like, well, maybe, you know, maybe they have a point. Maybe. Maybe his tone was bad. Maybe that's why he got killed. Maybe we. Maybe. Maybe there's a point to what they're saying. Maybe we should, you know, welcome this ideology, and maybe we're off. That happens. There are some people that get emboldened when tragedy strikes. And there's some people who cower and they stop proclaiming the truth. And so I want to encourage you, even if you're not a pastor or an influencer or have a platform, I don't care. The Lord's not impressed with the stage. The Lord's not impressed with the followers. You know what he's impressed with? He's impressed with a heart that says, I've been so moved by the gospel that even if they hate me, I still proclaim the truth. Even if they stone me and they leave me for dead, I go back to that very same city. And that happens with your children, that happens with your spouse, that happens at your school, that happens wherever your sphere of influence is, that happens with your family. Because the Bible says the Gospel will divide families. I've had people leave relationship with me in my own family because of my stances on things. Praise God for that. I hate it. It hurts my heart. But that's what Jesus said would happen. That's what the Bible says. So we don't water down the truth at all. In fact, we get emboldened for the truth. And I want you to think about specific examples that you can do that. Maybe it's a conversation you need to have with your kids, maybe husbands, maybe you need to start praying with your wives. Maybe you need to start reading the word of God over them. Maybe you need to go back to church. Whatever it is, you need to pray. And you need to ask the Holy Spirit, how do I become emboldened for the truth? And then the fourth thing we do as Christians is we bless and we love our enemies. We bless and love our enemies when they hate us, when they revile us, when they kill us. And that's how the Kingdom of God advances. It is backwards, upside down, almost offensive, but it is the most beautiful thing on the planet. Because guess what? Like I said earlier, revival breaks out when we do that. The spirit begins to move when we do that. But when we operate in vengeance, what happens is a spirit of bitterness takes root, unforgiveness takes root. And it doesn't destroy them, it destroys you. Because forgiveness is not saying that what they did doesn't matter or wasn't wrong or wasn't evil and demonic and doesn't affect us still. What they did to Charlie Kirk and to his family was horrific, inexcusable, awful, satanic. But what we're saying is we relinquish our right to take vengeance against them and we turn them over to the Lord who says, vengeance is mine, I shall repay. Because unforgiveness is too much for your soul to bear. The weight of that unforgiveness will crush you. And so what do you do? You move in love towards them. In love without truth is hollow, but truth without love is harsh. So we move in truth and love, and that's what moves the Kingdom of God forward. That's what advances the gospel. That's where people can see grace and they can grasp it. So I want to pray right now. I want to Pray for two things. I want to pray for Charlie Kirk's family, and then I want to pray for you. I want to pray that you would move in forgiveness, and I want to pray that you would move in love. And I would. I want to pray that you would move in boldness. And I want to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you where he's calling you to be more bold. Because guess what? If Charlie would have survived that, what do you think he would have been doing? He would have gone right back, just like Paul did. But he didn't survive it. He left us. So what's the call to the Christian? It's to pick up his mantle. It's to proclaim the gospel, it's to proclaim the truth. It's to stand against evil, and it's to love people. Even if they revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of falsehood against us, and if they kill us, we still choose to move in love. So Holy Spirit, come right now. We just pray that you would flood that family with your love. Those sweet little babies. Lord Jesus, would you just please have your hands around them? Would you hold them, Lord? Would you hold his wife? Lord, have mercy. Be near to them, Jesus, you are the comforter, so comfort them, Lord. And that, Lord, would you embolden the listener here? Would you show them where you want them to speak out, speak up and move in love and lead their families and lead their children and carry on the legacy? We trust you, Lord. And we trust you, Lord, for revival to break out. That's what we're asking right now. United in Jesus name, would you create revival? We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.