I read Isaiah 59 this week, and something leaped off the page. Here is 59:13-15.
13 Transgressing and denying the Lord,
And turning away from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words.
14 Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands far away;
For truth has stumbled in the street,
And uprightness cannot enter.
15 Yes, truth is lacking;
And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey.
Now the Lord saw,
And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.
Brothers and sisters, it is our responsibility to testify to the Lord, His goodness, His mercy, His compassion. But also, to testify to His justice, of His truth, of His judgment. Verse 15 is appropriate in our day: And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Evil seeks to destroy God’s witness in the earth. What shall we do?
English author Edward Lytton wrote a poem in 1839. A line in his poem has lived on to this day, quoted and immortalized for the simple truth it makes clear. Here is the full context of that statement.
True,—This!
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand!— itself a nothing!—
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars—and to strike
The loud earth breathless!—Take away the sword—
States can be saved without it![1]
I have often said that the pen is mightier than the sword. I think of the writings of Muhammad, Marx, Nietzsche, and Hitler as examples of the power of the pen to move people to destructive and even mass genocidal ends.
The pen takes much longer to find a home in the minds of people. The reason this is true is that people must stop and think before they act on their emotions. People must exercise their ability to reason together and arrive at conclusions that benefit the whole. The pen can call people to exercise the best of what makes us human – love, compassion, kindness - but it can also move people to engage in oppression, cruelty, hatred, and savagery.
Ideals expressed through the pen can move nations to peace and prosperity. These were the theological and philosophical foundations upon which the United States was built.
In our world today, the pen has brought America to a place of stark division. Writers who see a racist behind every tree, a homophobe behind every objection to debauchery, and a fascist behind every call for public and private sobriety and measured discourse have created an atmosphere where the political assassination of a young man is celebrated, even by elected officials. The religion of secular humanism has turned the minds of millions of people into garbage dumps of inconsistent, illogical, self-centered narcissism.
The United States is surely at a turning point. Which path will we choose? The leftists of our nation would have us continue on the path of destruction of every value and moral, every idea and guiding light that in any way references or is founded upon Christianity. Those of us who follow Jesus know America is on life support.
Thankfully, we see men and women, young and old alike, rising to the occasion. Where death and destruction have reigned in this nation recently, we now see millions of people rising to take a stand against the darkness that has nearly enveloped us all.
How has America arrived at this place? The answers are many, but they focus on a few important observations. Dr. Judd Burton recently wrote:
We threw out the antique classics from education. Are you surprised our unlearned population grows? We dispose of the rigor of the trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Are you surprised there are generations now who cannot think critically and engage in civil discourse? We meld these dispensations with divorce of morality from education. Are you shocked when the morally vacuous feel entitled to silence ideas contrary to theirs with violence rather than debate? America was once a nation voracious to be informed and educated, from the autodidact to the collegian. We had a system that worked, that was not simply the recitation of Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch, Moses, and Jesus, but their application. Ravage public education and the academy, and turn the public forum riotous and bloody. Pursue what is good, what is beautiful, and what is true.[2]
The public education system has destroyed several generations of children by turning them into secular religious zealots. The travesty is that trillions of dollars have been used to teach children to loathe America and to participate in its destruction.
Dean Dwyer wrote an article posted today on Harbinger’s Daily, titled, “Speaking Biblical Truth Is Inherently Dangerous In A World Driven By The Father Of Lies.” He observed that,
In a world where, in 2024, a little over a third of Stanford students said using violence to silence speech is acceptable, it is clear that the unbelieving and hostile world has a problem with truth. Why? Because of their genealogy. I speak not of their biological family, but of their spiritual family. You see, when your spiritual inheritance comes from the father of lies, you will see truth as antithetical to the vitality of your family unit. Because the unregenerate sinner is spiritually dead, only death can come out of their mouth. There is no doubt they value the principle of free speech for themselves. However, what we must understand is that free speech is seen differently in the kingdom of darkness than in the kingdom of light.
To the father of lies and his children, free speech is designed to tear people down, spread lies, destroy the witness of the church and stoke violence against those who wish to bring light to the kingdom of darkness. After all, let’s not forget what Jesus said as recorded in John 3:19: “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” They don’t just tolerate the darkness, they don’t just like the darkness, they love the darkness. Consequently, those who love darkness will hate the light because light is seen as the enemy of darkness and in their mind, an enemy needs to be destroyed.[3]
Dwyer is right. The darkness hates the light. Leftist progressive Marxists hate Jesus and Christianity. They will not stop until they are defeated. Even then, they will regroup in the shadows and await a future day when they can rise again.
Dr. Greg Reid cited Revelation 11:10 recently, which says, “And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.” He then observed the following,
It was hard to comprehend, in the book of Revelation, why people would send gifts to each other because the prophets had been murdered.
Now I understand, as I see the pure, evil hatred for a person who is murdered in cold blood, and hysterical rejoicing, which is really the laughter of demons - not just depraved people. We are just seeing a precursor of what shall come hereafter.
The same spirit in Sodom that would dare to demand to be given angels of God to violate in the most vile way, is the spirit at work now in those who would laugh hysterically at the death of a young man who never hurt anybody.
Days of Noah…[4]
The days of Noah indeed. Cowardice has gripped the body of Christ in far too many cases. My friend and fellow pastor Paul Fenseke wrote that,
Foolish actions have consequences (it breeds cowardly behaviors )...
Remember in 2020 when churches across America put black squares on their social media to show their support for BLM... If your church was foolish enough to stand with a reprobate organization but lacks the courage to stand for a Brother in Christ that was martyred, then you should find a different church.
Seriously in all love for my fellow Brethren that are in leadership .... It's time to stand up for Righteousness. Let's make a confession of our apathy and preservation of our image. Our God is faithful to forgive and restore. If you're compromised in leading His sheep, then quietly and quickly remove yourself from leadership. Let the men of God come forward that are willing to risk everything for His people. May it never be said of us in leadership, that we were to consumed by what people think to not stand for the Truth.[5]
The call that the Spirit has issued to the body of Christ is that it is time to stand up for Jesus. It is not the time to respond in the same demonic manner as the leftists and deranged lunatics who believe bullets are warranted by anyone who dares tell them they are wrong. The battle starts with all of us. One comment I saw on X yesterday sums up what we must do now.
You may be wondering why I have not posted much these past few days. I needed to get my heart right. You see I was tempted with RAGE. I wanted to fight, get back, go to war against this evil world who laugh at the death one of my brothers in Christ. My “old man of flesh” reared its ugly head that first day we all heard the news and saw the video regarding my brother Charlie Kirk.
When I got home from work. I was silent. My wife asked what was wrong. She knew the news but knew she had to hear from me. I am ashamed of what came out of my heart that night. My beautiful wife just prayed for me all night. I have been silent since my outburst. Slowly Jesus replaced my rage with His Word and assured me He will get the glory in this tragic reprehensible evil act.
I watch as many from around the world are turning to Jesus and opening their Bibles for the first time. I see conversations happening between people about our Jesus that Charlie spoke so much about. I see people giving their lives to Jesus. Our God is truly getting the glory by “Romans EIGHT: TWENTYEIGHTING” this evil act.[6]
One of the best articles I have read since the assassination of Charlie Kirk was written by J. D. Hall. While he and I do not agree on some theological things, he did speak eloquently and forcefully about the cultural context of our nation that sees the public execution of a Christian as something to celebrate. I now share Hall’s thoughts.
He was light. That is not flattery or fan service. That is not the kind of shallow praise tossed around after a tragedy when the cameras arrive and the eulogies demand adjectives. It is the truth. Charlie Kirk was light. He shined in a way that made cynics uncomfortable. He glowed in a way that made enemies furious. He radiated something rare in this present darkness, something that does not come from talent alone or charisma alone or strategy alone. He radiated conviction fused with joy. He was luminous, and people knew it. They could feel it before they could describe it. They were drawn to him because of it, because in a world suffocating under the heavy veil of lies, he stood out as a torch.
Charlie Kirk was not merely a man on a stage, he was a flickering wick in this present darkness. His life was a flame, small against the cavernous night, yet stubborn, refusing to be snuffed by the howling winds of the age. Every speech, every rally, every confrontation was another moment where that wick pushed back the shadows. It was not the brilliance of a bonfire, but the resilience of a single light that makes the surrounding darkness rage all the harder. That is why his death feels cosmic. The darkness did not come only for a man, it came for the wick itself, the testimony that even in a collapsing world a flame can still burn.
HORROR ON THE HORIZON
This afternoon at Utah Valley University, the torch was burning bright. Students crowded the quad, not all of them fans, but all of them curious. They came because he pulled them in like a flame in the night sky pulls in every moth for miles. Some wanted to hear him spar with critics. Some wanted to hear him preach his version of America’s promise. Some simply wanted to witness the energy for themselves. There was laughter. There was clapping. There was chanting. It felt less like a campus event and more like a revival, and that is what his critics never understood. They thought he was a provocateur. They thought he was a marketer. He was those things, but the deeper truth is that he carried the electricity of a revival preacher. That was why he terrified them.
And then it ended. The shot cracked through the air like the sound of the world splitting. At first some thought it was a prank, some sound system glitch. But then they saw the blood. It spread across his shirt with the speed of betrayal. His body crumpled in his chair, and then toward the stage floor. The screams rose from the crowd like the howl of a wounded animal. Students shoved each other in blind panic, scattering in every direction, some tripping over backpacks and fallen phones, others collapsing to the ground in shock. The light that had gathered them only moments before was gone, and in its place came chaos.
The governor of Utah called it an assassination. Federal agents confirmed it. It was not random violence. It was not an accident. It was not a mistake. It was deliberate, premeditated, and aimed directly at the heart of a man who had become a symbol. The word assassination has a history of blood behind it. It conjures the book depository, the balcony in Memphis, the kitchen pantry in Los Angeles, the attempted ambush outside the Hilton in Washington. But it had not been spoken in this country with conviction for decades. Now it had returned, carried on the wings of a bullet that stole a leader in broad daylight.
History shifted in that moment. The center of gravity in American politics cracked. You could feel it in the silence that followed, the silence of disbelief, the silence that comes when an entire generation realizes it has just witnessed something that will mark them for the rest of their lives. People compare it to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Some say it surpasses that. Bobby had been a figure of hope for the fractured sixties, but Charlie had become the lightning rod of an even larger movement. He was not running for president, but he was mentoring thousands who would. He was not holding office, but he was shaping the minds of the voters who fill offices. His death did not merely eliminate a man. It detonated a fault line.
And at the center of that detonation is the image that will not leave anyone’s memory. A man smiling into a crowd, his voice carrying the words of a promise, suddenly folding as crimson spread down his chest. It was not just his body that fell. It was the sense of safety that Americans still half believed they had. It was the belief that in a modern Republic, ideas were battled with words and ballots, not bullets. That illusion fell with him. The republic has been here before, but it had forgotten the feel of it. Now it remembers, and the memory will not leave.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
THE LIGHT WAS THE LIFE OF MEN
But before the panic, before the stampede, before the chaos, there was the light; not of Charlie, but of Christ, through Charlie. That is what must not be forgotten. Charlie was not a perfect man, but he was a radiant one. He carried himself with an intensity that pierced through apathy. He was mocked as a provocateur, but no one could deny his reach. He was derided as simplistic, but his simplicity was his weapon. Light is simple. It does not need to be complex. It needs to shine, and he shined. He walked onto that stage luminous, and in the eyes of the students who saw him, he carried something eternal. That is what makes the crime so unspeakable. It was not only the murder of a man. It was the attempted murder of light itself.
Assassinations are not just attacks on individuals. They are attacks on meaning. They are chosen precisely because the victim embodies something larger than themselves. John F. Kennedy embodied the image of American vigor. Martin Luther King Jr. embodied the image of justice (that’s what we’re told, anyway). Robert Kennedy embodied the image of youthful hope. And Charlie Kirk embodied the image of a rising Christian nationalism (lowercase-n) that terrified the secular left. That is why the shot was fired. That is why the blood was spilled. The assassin did not merely want to silence a voice. The assassin wanted to extinguish what the voice represented.
Yet light has a way of refusing extinction. Even as he collapsed, even as his body was rushed from the stage, even as the crowd scattered in confusion, the memory of his presence remained. The last thing those students saw before the shot was a man smiling, alive, passionate, filled with energy. That is the memory that will remain. That is the spark that cannot be put back in the bottle. The shot killed the man, but it could not kill the light that had already been multiplied in the lives of thousands who had followed him.
It is tempting to say America lost its innocence again. That is the phrase the commentators reach for every time tragedy strikes. But innocence was gone long ago. What America lost this afternoon was not innocence. It was confidence. The confidence that its political conflicts would remain civil, the confidence that leaders could rise without being struck down, the confidence that students could gather to hear a speaker without risking their lives. That confidence died on the quad at Utah Valley University, and its loss will echo.
The blood that stained his shirt was more than blood. It was a sign. A sign that the forces of chaos have grown bold again. A sign that light is a target. A sign that a new age of political violence is not just a nightmare from the sixties but a present reality. The republic must reckon with it. The church must reckon with it. Every family that sends their children into the public square must reckon with it. The light has been struck, and the world has changed.
Still, one truth remains. He was light. He just was. And no bullet can fully erase what light reveals.
THE WINGED SHADOW ARMY GATHERS
The blood had not dried on the stage before the air grew thick with something darker than grief. It was not only sorrow that descended on America after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It was a presence, ancient and familiar, the kind that chills a room without touching the thermostat. It felt as though the winged angels of hell had been loosed, circling overhead, gorging themselves on the terror and confusion of a people unprepared for their arrival. The crowd at Utah Valley scattered as though something unseen had brushed against their shoulders. They fled not only a gunman but the sense that a line had been crossed and that the darkness on the other side had a face.
America has always had lunatics. Every nation does. There are always the deranged, the unstable, the paranoid mutterers on city benches. But something has shifted in recent years. What once hid in alleys and padded rooms now struts openly through the streets. You can see them on subways, screaming at the ceiling while passengers avert their eyes. You can see them on sidewalks, glazed with fentanyl and lurching like zombies out of a nightmare. You can see them in mobs, howling outside courthouses, threatening to burn cities for causes they can barely articulate. The deranged are no longer isolated. They are legion. They have become an army of the unstable, sleeper cells of the insane, ready to be activated whenever the blood demons tap upon their shoulders.
The trope of the dangerous Leftist is not a trope. It is the daily headline. It is the video clip of a woman setting a stranger on fire in the subway. It is the footage of mobs hurling bricks at police officers while chanting slogans about love and liberation. It is the grim reality of churches vandalized, pregnancy centers torched, and statues toppled by activists whose eyes shine with something that looks less like conviction and more like possession. They are not simply political opponents. They are vessels, and what fills them is not reason. What fills them is the spirit of murder dressed in slogans.
SATANIC SLEEPERS
When Charlie Kirk fell, the sleeper cell awoke. The assassin has not yet been explained to us, but his action is a parable of a broader truth. There are thousands like him wandering the streets, their strings waiting to be pulled. Each one is a puppet dangling over the abyss, waiting for a whisper to turn their madness into murder. This is not mere crime. It is not even mere politics. It is ritual, the offering of blood to the demonic powers that now roam unchecked in our public square. The devil is no longer content to tempt in private. He now parades his disciples in broad daylight and feeds them targets.
You can feel it in the atmosphere of the country. The sense of dread is not simply about crime statistics or protest movements. It is about the spiritual fog that hangs over every gathering. Walk through an airport terminal and you feel the eyes scanning for threats. Sit in a classroom and you feel the tension of words unspoken, a suspicion that violence is never far away. Attend a rally and you know instinctively that the next lunatic could be hiding in the third row, waiting for his blood demon to tap his shoulder. This is not paranoia. It is recognition. America is being haunted.
The Left has become the perfect soil for this haunting because it has cultivated grievance as a sacrament. Its adherents are trained to believe that the world owes them something, that they are victims of unseen forces, that their rage is righteous. Combine that with pharmaceuticals, addiction, and the steady hum of propaganda, and you do not get a political movement. You get an army of vessels ready to be filled by whatever spirit offers them purpose. The assassin of Charlie Kirk did not act in a vacuum. He acted as one more in a long line of darkened minds convinced that their violence was holy.
A MULTIPLICATION OF CHAOS
And here lies the terrible truth. These are not isolated incidents. They are rehearsals. They are trial runs for something larger. The angels of hell are not content with one stage or one bullet. They seek multiplication of chaos. They are feeding on the spectacle, drawing strength from every fearful glance, every panicked gathering, every shattered sense of safety. Each act of violence tears another stitch out of the fabric that holds civilization together, until one day the whole garment will unravel. The laughter of demons will echo through the streets that once belonged to families and communities.
What happened in Utah Valley is not just a tragedy. It is a revelation. It revealed that the line between sanity and madness has been blurred on purpose. It revealed that the gate between order and chaos has been left unlatched. It revealed that there is an army already moving among us, disguised as commuters, protestors, and neighbors, yet waiting for the signal to turn. It revealed that the old Satanic truth still stands: the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, and his agents have now found their mark in the most public square of our republic.
This is why the moment feels heavy. The grief for Charlie Kirk is profound, but grief alone cannot explain the dread pressing on the nation’s chest. The dread comes from the sense that this is only the beginning, that what was unleashed in Utah will not be contained by Utah. The winged angels of hell do not retire after one performance. They swarm, they spread, they search for the next vessel, the next lunatic, the next stage on which to reenact their ritual. Unless confronted, they will continue until the nation is bathed in the theater of their cruelty.
The shot that felled Charlie Kirk was more than a bullet. It was a flare fired into the sky, summoning the shadow army to rise and move. The question before America is whether it will wake up to the reality that this is not just political rivalry. This is spiritual warfare manifesting in flesh and blood, in bullets and screams, in chaos and despair. The devil has torn off his mask. His servants now march in the open. The shadows have awakened, and their appetite is insatiable.
THE DEMAND FOR TRUTH AND CONTROL
The first response to assassination is always grief. The second is always fear. But the third must be resolve. America cannot allow itself to wander in the fog that descends after a public murder. That fog is where rumors breed and demons dance. It is where suspicions turn into fires that burn down neighborhoods. It is where enemies, foreign and domestic, exploit the confusion to advance their agendas. After the murder of Charlie Kirk, the nation stands at the brink of that fog. The blood on the stage, and already the whispers are multiplying. Who was the assassin? What forces stirred him to act? Was he another lone lunatic, or was he a vessel activated by something larger? If the truth is hidden, the void will be filled by suspicion. And suspicion will burn hotter than any bullet ever fired.
This is why the demand for truth cannot wait. The Department of Justice must be tasked, directly, to provide full disclosure. Not a summary. Not a redacted memo. Not a press conference carefully edited by attorneys. Full disclosure. The American people have been lied to too many times to accept anything less. They were lied to about assassins before. They were lied to about coups before. They were lied to about foreign operations, domestic infiltration, and the dark laboratories of power where men believe they can play at being gods. If the truth is withheld, the suspicion will metastasize. It will grow into riots and uprisings. It will grow into conspiracies so thick that even the innocent will drown in them. Only the raw sunlight of truth can cut through that fog.
There is already fear that the assassin was not simply a man who snapped. There is fear that he was another broken pawn of the intelligence machine. A pawn tied to Langley. A pawn tied to one of the university neuroscience programs that serve as the respectable mask for experiments no one admits. If that fear proves true, the republic will quake. Because it would mean that assassination is no longer only the work of rogues or radicals. It would mean that the state itself, or elements within it, are once again dabbling in ritual bloodletting to discipline political movements. That is why the disclosure must be total. The nation cannot survive another half-truth. It cannot endure another cover-up.
Even if the assassin was a loner, the questions will not stop there. Who shaped his ideology. Who funded his movements. Who pushed him to the edge and then whispered to him which target would bring the greatest chaos. The line between deranged activist and manipulated vessel is thin. The demand for truth is not about curiosity. It is about survival. The republic will not heal unless it knows exactly what happened and why. Anything less is an invitation to madness.
And yet the demand for truth must be matched by restraint. Because there are forces waiting for this moment, waiting like wolves for the chance to unleash chaos. They are already salivating. They are already planning marches, riots, demonstrations, counter-demonstrations. They want the fog. They want the streets filled with fire and fury so that the nation fractures beyond repair. If the people gather blindly in rage, if they pour into the streets without discipline, they will be playing directly into the hands of the enemy. This is how republics are burned. This is how nations collapse into rubble.
Charlie Kirk was luminous, but he was also disciplined. He knew that fury without order is wasted. He knew that chaos consumes movements rather than advancing them. To honor him is not to riot. To honor him is to demand truth with clarity and to guard against the traps of unrest. There will be provocateurs (feds, probably) who seek to bait crowds into violence. There will be infiltrators who seek to turn vigils into riots. There will be opportunists who seek to hijack his memory for their own power. To fall into those traps would be to betray his legacy.[7]
I am amazed at what God has already done in the wake of Charlie’s martyrdom. Music artists Kid Rock and Eminem are the latest example of what happens when we talk with one another instead of hating. They have announced the formation of a new organization, which they have named “Charlie Kirk: From Debate to Great.” The goal is to organize free debate events at universities across the nation. Both Kid Rock and Eminem have stated that as a nation, we must engage in civil discourse. This is the realization of what Charlie Kirk hoped for—debate, not violence.
Isn’t that what Jesus did? He had conversations and debates with people who were vehemently opposed to His views. It seems that this is the least Christians can do today. We have arrived at a turning point. Will you stand up and represent Jesus in a nation that desperately needs Him?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pen_is_mightier_than_the_sword
[2] Facebook post from Burton, September
[3] Dean Dwyer, “Speaking Biblical Truth Is Inherently Dangerous In A World Driven By The Father Of Lies.” Harbinger’s Daily, September 13, 2025.
[4] Dr. Greg Reid Facebook post September 13, 2025.
[5] Paul Fehseke Facebook post September 13, 2025.
[6] From @TruthTreasury on X https://x.com/TruthTreasury/status/1966960634127663513
[7] J. D. Hall, “Charlie Kirk, and a Flickering Wick in the Present Darkness.” September 10, 2025.
I don't have the vocabulary to do this comment section right.
I just want to highlight the truth, the many truths, from all the contributors to this excellent article.