Reflections in Light of the Assassination of Charlie Kirk | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Well, many of you are well aware that we are not going to be

doing Bible study tonight. And this is not a a sermon

either, nor is this a political speech.

And I can tell you that upfront because what we experience as a

nation has no political solution.

This is not about left and right.

This is not about policies. This is not about narratives.

This is not about anything other than righteousness versus evil,

lightness and dark. And I'm speaking from my heart

tonight. I'm speaking from my heart.

And hopefully it will touch your heart because my concern with

everything else that is going on is the condition of the people

of God. Because there are a lot of

voices out there. There's a lot of emotion,

there's a lot of theories, there are a lot of clips.

Things are developing even as we are having this time together.

And the thing that really struck me, apart from the shocking

assassination of Charlie Kirk 2 days ago, was how many people

across the board really have vocalized the same sentiment

that they can't really make sense of how they are grieving

so deeply for someone that they never knew.

Now, there is an entire other side to this issue that would

point the finger at anybody who publicly grieves over this man

to say that you're being hypocritical.

There are other tragedies taking place in the world.

Why would you bring so much attention and vocalize so much

concern for an individual? You can't explain everything in

life and there are many tragedies in this world and

every life is precious. And sometimes when an event like

what transpired 2 days ago happens, you can't always put

language to why you feel the way you feel.

But I have been thinking about potential reasons why.

The first is that this man, Charlie Kirk, he was a household

name. Whether you love them or hated

him, agreed with him or disagree with him, most people knew him,

especially millennials and Gen. ZI don't have social media.

I haven't had personal accounts on social media for years, and I

still know who this man is because people send his clips.

Inevitably, you see him on some kind of headline, and so people

are aware of who this man was. Second to that, he was

gruesomely murdered for the world to see.

We're not just heartbroken by the fact that a man in the prime

of his life was killed, leaving behind a wife and two kids.

The world witnessed in an uncensored way, the bullet of a

sniper rifle ripping through the throat of a man mid sentence on

a college campus. That's traumatic.

That is horror, and that is something that most people have

never seen in their lives. So there's that element.

Here's the third one, and this is especially relevant to us.

This man, Charlie Kirk, was a follower of Jesus Christ, a

bold, unashamed, passionate proclaimer of the truth.

I will be honest in saying that I did not follow this man

closely. I obviously knew of his name.

I've seen a couple of things, but because of what had

happened, I decided to just kind of catch up and see his most

known discussions, debate moments, I guess his

presentation of the truth. And refreshingly, unlike many

other pundits and people who have big platforms who kind of

just wear the Christian badge because they're moral or because

they want to just cling to some kind of worldview, I'm convinced

that this young man was a genuine follower of Christ.

There's no denying it. And so we're we're heavy hearted

because a brother in the Lord first and foremost.

Beyond anything, I view this man as a disciple of Jesus Christ,

and he lost his life. And we know there's a hope

attached to our faith even in death.

But we can still feel this weight and we can still be sad,

and we can still come before God and ask questions.

Here's the last thing I'll say before I open up some

scriptures. What happened to this man was

not only a physical attack. I am totally persuaded that it

was an assault on everything that he stood for.

And what he stood for includes the gospel that you and I

believe in and a ferocious, loving commitment to

righteousness. So that's that's potentially why

we feel the way we feel. And it's only been what, 2 days?

And knowing that we weren't going to do Bible study tonight,

I want to just share with you 3 main thoughts that have been

rewinding in my mind. And hopefully these thoughts

based on Scripture will provide some kind of clarity and courage

for you as it did for me. So the first thing that I can't

seem to stop playing in my mind is how what had happened very

much revealed the depths of wickedness in our society.

The murder was brutal. I found out about it while I was

at the gym on Wednesday afternoon, and shortly after I

received the clip, the raw clip of him being killed.

And shortly after that, because I'm not on social media, I

received screenshots of comments of people who celebrated the

assassination. And some of the things that

stood out to me were how people were even.

I'm saying this for a reason. You'll see in a moment people

were even putting gift emojis beside their comments, rejoicing

of this man's public slaughter. Do you know where my mind

immediately went when I saw those comments?

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 11.

Revelation 11 · chapter mention

I want you to see this with me. It's amazing how this book,

Revelation, is so timely for us as a church and how relevant it

is even for tragedies like what we're experiencing today.

Revelation 11 is primarily about these two mysterious figures

known as the Two Witnesses. I'm not going to get into an

interpretation or an explanation of who these figures are.

I just want you to see what they will do and how the world will

respond to their ministry. Let's begin in verse 4,

Revelation 11. These are the 2 olive trees and

the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and

consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this

is how he is doomed to be killed.

They have the power to shut the sky that no rain may fall during

the days of their prophesying, and they have the power over the

waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with

every kind of plague as often as they desire.

Now pause. These are unusual messengers of

God. We'll be endowed with a certain

level of authority and ability unlike any other time, unless

you really go back to the Old Testament and we're dealing with

a tribulation period in this chapter.

So this makes sense. This is a unique moment in

history where God will empower these unique servants to

accomplish something before the end of all things.

Look at verse 7. And when they had finished their

testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will

make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their

dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is

symbolically. That symbolically is called

Sodom in Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.

For 3 1/2 days, some of the peoples and tribes and languages

and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let

them be placed in a tomb. Pause again.

I wonder how that's going to happen.

How is every peoples of all tribes, languages and nations

going to be able to gaze at 2 bodies in one location at the

same time? I think you know the answer.

Verse 10. And those who dwell on the earth

will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presence,

because these two prophets had been a torment to those who

dwell on the earth. That's immediately where my mind

went when I saw those heinous, despicable comments about the

assassination of a father, a husband, and an innocent man in

the Tribulation period, when these two witnesses will be

killed and will not even receive the honor of having their bodies

respected. Laying there on the streets for

a few days, people will actually be celebrating to the point of

buying presents and giving it to others.

Aren't you happy we got rid of these guys?

Notice here that it says these two prophets at the end of verse

10 had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

Isn't that remarkable? The preaching and the

prophesying of these two witnesses will be torture to the

inhabitants of the earth during the Tribulation period.

It will literally torment them. For those who love darkness,

truth is torturous. It is unbearable.

It deserves the relief expressed through killing someone in order

to silence them. What we witnessed 2 days ago, in

my opinion, is a very strong reminder of where we're headed

as a people in this world, as a nation.

So that's what stood out to me. As shocking as it is on your

social media platforms, the things that you're seeing in

people's stories and what they're posting.

The Bible already prepared us and telling us very

descriptively how people will respond to truth speakers as we

approach the end of time. So don't be too surprised.

And this also tells me that what we saw two days ago isn't the

last of it. I know it can be defined and

deemed as a historical thing, but it's not the last of it.

Because Revelation tells us that it's going to at least happen to

two other more witnesses. The second thing that has been

swirling in my thoughts, and I know it's very easy to become

sensational after something like what we saw two days ago.

It's very easy to speak from your emotions, to be clouded in

your judgement. And I don't want to do that, but

I will say this because I believe it's true.

This is a wake up call to Christians that we live in a

different America now. We are a people who believe in

truth and we are people who've been commissioned by God to

speak the truth. The means by which somebody is

saved is through the word Roman, Romans highlights through the

preaching of the word. We are not like some religions

that want to just remain to ourselves and are not interested

in other people coming to know what we believe in.

No, we are the opposite. God has kept us on this earth to

go out and to win other people to the saving knowledge of Jesus

Christ. And we're living in a day where

there is a growing movement that says if you don't agree with

what we believe, you deserve to be killed.

And you're thinking to yourself, well, it was 1 gunman.

And I'm here to remind you of the people who celebrated it.

There is an entire culture, there is an entire movement that

is gaining momentum, that is becoming more bold, that is

unafraid, that are willing to even die to silence those who

speak the truth. So here's what I want to remind

you of, not to instill more fear in you, but to be honest with

you. We are living in an America that

is advancing and moving towards a reality in which you will pay

a price for what you believe in. Are you willing to pay that

price? Cultural Christianity in the

West is rapidly evaporating. It's disappearing before our

eyes. What you and I saw again 2 days

ago wasn't the assassination of a young evangelist in a Middle

Eastern country or under a communist regime.

It was on a college campus through an organization that

fostered discourse and dialogue for ideas to be exchanged

freely. Passionately, yes, but freely.

And the leader of that organization was killed.

Because, again, we're seeing the rise of an ideology that says,

unless you remain silent or agree with us, you don't deserve

to speak. You don't deserve to live.

You've heard it many times from this pulpit that America is not

exempt from persecution, that America is changing.

And personally, I'm concerned that even Christians that we may

know of are still asleep. They're not getting it.

They're not seeing it. They're they're still caught up

in this life. Let me remind you of 2 verses

that you know very well. In John 15, Jesus told us

something that relates to this thought.

Verse 18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before

it hated you. To us, it seems inconceivable,

unthinkable that we could be hated, that we have evolved.

Surely we have evolved with all the massacres and all the civil

wars and all the craziness. We we've surely learned our

lesson and we can accommodate and we can respectfully

disagree. No, Jesus prepares his people

for all time to be hated. And one of the ways in which you

can console yourself according to this verse is that if you are

hated, remember that they hated Jesus, the perfect one, the

sinless 1, the most loving and gracious one.

They hated Him and if you live for him, what makes you think

they're not going to hate you and me?

Now, another thing that really irked me with a little

information that I received, because again, I'm not on these

platforms are the comments of supposed Christians professing

Christians who are biblically illiterate.

And I have no idea how to interpret life and events and

tragedies the way the Bible calls us to, who don't even have

the basic grasp of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

What I mean by that there are so many people who have verses in

their profiles and claim to be followers of Christ who think

that Christians should never call out sin.

Who think that Christians should never go out to the public

square and confront unbelievers in the rebellion in their

darkness. Who think that the most loving

thing to do is to keep your faith to yourself and just

preach the gospel. Don't, don't discuss issues.

Don't, don't, don't highlight any kind of movement or

ideology. Just keep your mouth shut, sing

your songs, listen to your sermons, live in sin and just do

your thing. Can I ask you a question?

Why did they hate Jesus? Why?

Come on, why did they hate him? Can I tell you why?

John 77 That's why. The Lord Jesus tells us why the

world hated Him. The world cannot hate you, but

it hates me because I testify about it that its works are

evil. I don't know what your version

of Jesus is, but the one in the Bible shows me that the Lord

Jesus testified to the world that its works were evil.

He confronted sin. He pointed out iniquity.

He charged people to repent, even the woman who was caught in

adultery, which nominal Christians love to quote in

defense of their unbiblical understanding of what it means

to preach the gospel. Yes, Jesus did say he was

without sin. Let him cast the first stone.

Yes, if there was anybody who was worthy to cast a stone, it

was Christ himself because he was without sin.

But the same Jesus who said that also looked at this woman and

says now go and sin no more. So many Christians out there are

preaching half a gospel, not the true gospel.

And believers, I want to look at you in the eye from my heart and

remind you that we are advancing in a nation, in a culture that

will try to do what it can to keep you from speaking the

truth, even if it means to lose your life.

Think about it. I never thought in my short life

the church at large will be having discussions of having

armed security for their services.

We're in America. What is this?

Where are we? People fled their nations to

come to this country so that they can enjoy the right of

being able to speak out. Oh, how that is quickly

changing. So we have just been reminded

that you can even be somebody who encourages dialogue and

there are people who don't even want that.

Be prepared. Christians.

Here's the last thing that I want to say.

Tomorrow's not promise for any of us.

And I was sharing with Pastor Bennett before the service.

How I I briefly looked at the final clip of Charlie Kirk on

his channel before he was murdered.

And it was so interesting to hear him to, to speak about the

event in Utah as you and I would any ordinary weekend.

So we're going to be going to Utah and this is the the start

of our tour and just talking about it.

I'm sure thinking that he was going to have a successful

event, go home to his children, to his wife, maybe talk to him

on the phone if he was away, go to sleep and wake up to see

another day. And instead, mid sentence, he

was shot in the throat. Tomorrow is not promised.

This was a man who again, in the prime of his life, had so much

to live, had so much ahead of him, was promised such a bright

future, was commended and celebrated by so many, and the

Lord Jesus took him home. The sovereignty of God is a

strange thing, really is. It was only some months ago

where somebody tried to assassinate the president and he

grazed his ear. And then you have this young 31

year old man who was shot in a place that, humanly speaking, is

impossible to recover from. Why did God allow one and not

the other? I don't have answers.

I can speculate, but if there's anything that I do know, it's

this. Tomorrow's not promised.

So should that cause us to live anxiously and obsessively in a

negative way, where you do all that you can to try to protect

your life? Yeah, There are natural means

and there are common sense methods to enjoy life and to

protect ourselves from danger and harm.

But. But I don't think that's what

we're supposed to take from this.

If anything, we should be reminded that though death is

very much possible at any point, we have no reason to fear it.

Not one. Let me remind you of a verse

that I brought up, I believe last Sunday or the Sunday before

from Revelation yet again in chapter 14, in verse 13.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, write this, Blessed are

the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their

laborers, for their deeds follow them.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.

There's a lot of fear and I decided to venture out and

listen to other high profile names trying to make sense of

what happened, trying to give some kind of hope or answers for

how this nation can move forward to no avail, No success, no, no

tangible, helpful, concrete solutions.

But let me say this, the safest place for you in this crazy

world is to be in Jesus. That's the safest to be in the

Lord, to be close to the Lord. Death is coming for all of us,

and for some of us it might be earlier than what's commonly

experienced. So be it.

Here's my charge to you. Live a meaningful life.

Live for the gospel cause. Live for the glory of God.

Don't waste your life. Don't go out.

Don't exit with no deeds following you, with no

testimony, with no ministry, with no witness.

What a shame that would be. I'm not saying that means you

have to have this big organization or you have to be

in full time ministry. What I am saying, though, is one

of my prayers, and it was our prayer many ways on Wednesday

night when we came together as a church, which was so moving.

Is that one of the redeemable elements of what happened in

this horrible tragedy is that it would wake up lukewarm

Christians because we have too many of them distracted,

vacillating, carnal, worldly Christians?

Let me tell you something. If we keep going in this

direction as a nation, you won't survive what's coming.

Your little faith, whatever it is, will shrivel up.

But it doesn't have to. It can thrive.

It can be strong. It can be bold.

It can be filled with the fragrance of Christ if what

happened doesn't bring you to your knees and make you think

about your mortality and make you think about how am I really

invested in this gospel? Am I really invested in serving

Christ? Or is he some peripheral thing?

Is he just something that I attach to my weekend?

I really hope that this tragedy will not produce what many

tragedies do. A burst of concern, a sobriety,

only for it to dissipate and for people to just go back to their

mundane, ineffective Christianity.

There's much more I can say. There's much more that can be

explained, at least attempted to be explained.

But let me say two things before we pray.

One, if you're here today and you don't know the Lord Jesus

Christ, I'm here to tell you without shame that He is the

truth. That He alone alone has the

answers for all the confusion and the chaos around us.

That you don't know life unless you know Him.

That you won't have eternal life unless you believe on Him.

To reject Him is to be rebellious.

To know of His gospel truth and to be indifferent towards it is

damning. I hope that you have been

awakened to the reality that no one in this world has an answer

to how to change the human heart.

God does, and it's in this word. You may have not been convinced

of the reality of God, but hopefully you are aware and you

can't deny the pervasive evil, the demonic work that is

manifesting right before our eyes.

You know, it's amazing. You have unbelievers who are

willing to call out and say what is really going on while so many

others are spineless in the church.

You have people who don't even believe in this gospel saying

that this is a spiritual war. You have unbelievers out there

saying that this is demonic. You have people who are standing

on a foundation that is weak, that is like sand, that offers

no true hope, and they are grabbing megaphones and they are

projecting their ideas and their solutions.

And yet we have Christians who are still scared to give the

only message that can save this generation.

I hope you're more bold than ever.

I hope you're more bold on your social media.

I hope you use what is taking place in our nation as an

opportunity to approach people who are hurting, who are

desperate for answers, though they may not admit it, and to

step into their lives to give them the hope of Jesus Christ.

If you don't give them a solution, Satan will give them a

false one, and it'll just bring them into deeper deception.

If I am not willing to do that, then what are we really here

for? And so if you're an unbeliever

here, I adjure you to truly repent, to bend your knee, to

surrender to the One who is sovereign over all these things.

And believer, I exhort you from a place of love to really take

your faith seriously and to ask God to use you every day and to

stay close to the Lord every day, to live with an eternal

perspective because tomorrow's not promised.

Father, we ask, oh Lord, how we need you.

In these times. It's very difficult for us to

just turn off our cell phones and to not hear what's

happening, to not look for updates.

But Laura, we understand that that can also be a trap where we

can get sucked into an endless cycle of commentary and

conspiracy theories and criticism and a culture war that

can take us away from our true purpose.

So we pray that you would use this brief service to reorient

us and to put weight on our ankles so that we can stay firm

where we're supposed to be. So Lord, give us divine wisdom,

divine courage. Help us not operate out of

feelings or in a reactionary way.

The Lord to be harnessed by the truth, to be filled with the

Spirit, to be encouraging to one another.

Lord, we pray for an avalanche of courage to crash into your

church. We pray that there wouldn't be a

drop of fear, but fearlessness, that there would be a unity in

the church, that there would be a passion for evangelism, that

there would be, Lord, a prophetic power behind every

pulpit. Lord, help us to preach the Word

in season and out of season, even in these times, as tempting

as it may be to not exegete the culture, But we're also aware

that there are headlines and there are events that intersect

with the church and are impossible to ignore.

And this is one of those times. And so we pray that you help us

navigate through these troubling waters successfully in a way

that honors you and blesses you. So, Lord, hear our prayers, hear

our prayers, oh God, this evening as your church, and we

pray that you would answer us in a way that would produce fruit

and testimonies. We pray for Charlie Kirk's

family. We pray for his wife, his

babies, his parents, his loved ones, That you would flood them

with peace, Oh Lord, that they would understand that his death

was not in vain. That they would know that the

dying the Lord is a blessing indeed, and that they will be

reunited with Him again, and that He is indeed in your

presence. And that Lord, in your great

wisdom, you did not want him to do anything else beyond that

day. He has fulfilled His purpose.

Help us fulfill ours. We pray for this nation, so

polarized, so divided. Lord, at a boiling point,

anything can happen. But we pray, O God, that your

spirit would hover over this place and that what would come

about is a genuine spiritual revival.

Somehow, some way, Lord, though this nation deserves great

judgment, we pray that you would extend mercy.

We asked, Lord, instead, that there would be churches filled,

the people who want to be saved, that you would speak boldly as

we heard about John the Baptist at the opening of the service, a

nation at that time that was in great turmoil and great

corruption politically and even religiously.

We ask, Oh God, that you would raise up prophetic voices that

would just preach. Thus says the Lord, the word of

God, Lord. Finally, we ask that though we

are surrounded by a divided nation, the church will not be

divided at this time. Make it airtight in its unity.

Make it airtight in its love. May our eyes be set on the true

purpose of our presence and our existence here, to proclaim the

truth, to herald righteousness even though we are persecuted

for it. So Lord, my prayer with my

brothers and sisters is that there would be an innumerable

amount of divine appointments in each of our worlds where we will

have conversations and opportunities to proclaim the

truth. That we would be unafraid to

even ask people how they're doing with the tragedy and the

chaos around us, and then to bring the truth to them.

Because if we don't, who else will?

We love you Lord, hear our cries tonight for the many things that

need your touch. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Here's how we proceed in the service.

We have to do war on our knees. This is a turning point.

Really it is. And I know that's the name of

this man's organization, but I can't think of a better phrase.

It really is a turning point and it could head into a direction

that is better or worse. And so just come before God.

I want to make it very open. We're not praying out loud like

we do on Wednesday. You can pray with a pocket of

people, whoever you came with. You can get on your knees on the

carpet if you'd like, as long as you don't distract anyone.

If you want to remain solo, you can pray solo.

But let's just pray. Let's pray for, for Charlie

Kirk's family, for the church at large, for this nation, for the

world really who has been seized by this assassination.

And, and let's ask God to use us really to make an impact for his

name's sake. I know much more could be said

from the pulpit. I know much more can can be

touched on. My purpose here tonight is to

simply exhort us. And my prayer is that you would

leave here lighter, clear, and with more courage.

So let's just do that. Let's take the next few moments

to pray here. We'll we're going to continue to

sing in a moment and close, but now let's just really pray.

So find someone to pray with. You want to pray in a group?

You can do that. If you want to pray on your own

again, you are permitted to do so as well.

Music will be playing softly. And let's just seek the Lord

together.