WWUTT 2470 Q&A Is Charlie Kirk a Martyr, Iryna Zarutska's Murder, Preaching with a Manuscript

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk and the Call to Christian Self-Control

Charlie Kirk was assassinated just a matter of a few days ago. He was bold about sharing his faith and standing on biblical principles. Did he die a martyr? How do we think about the murder of that young woman in Charlotte that has been seen by so many?

And should a pastor have a manuscript when he preaches? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text. Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not with me this week. She's actually at a women's retreat and she's speaking at that retreat. So if you would do us both a favor and say a prayer for her, we would greatly appreciate it.

Let me begin by reading from Isaiah chapter 54. I'm beginning in verse 14. Hear the word of the Lord in righteousness. You shall be established. You shall be far from oppression for you shall not fear and from terror for it shall not come near you.

If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me. Whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you. Behold, I have created the Smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose.

I have also created the Ravager to destroy no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me declares the Lord.

And that is the heritage for every one of us as Christians for you and for me brethren, nothing formed against us shall stand. You are eternally secure in the arms of your Savior Jesus Christ who died for us who rose again from the dead is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Whoever believes in him will not perish, but we have everlasting life. That is a message that I have been dedicated to preaching through my pulpit through this ministry always sharing the gospel because it is only the power of the gospel that can save a person that can raise the dead back to life that has the power to forgive sins and reconcile back to God.

This has been a tough news week for a lot of reasons reasons. We're going to be talking about on this episode of the program. This by the way is the Friday edition of the program and we take questions from the listeners and respond to them.

You can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com or send us a voicemail go to wwut .com click on that voicemail tab and record a message either through your phone or through your computer and I've got three voicemails that I'm going to be responding to here on this episode.

The first one is about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Now, I am recording this on a Friday night. Typically, I try to post this program Friday in the wee morning hours. So it's there for you to listen to on Friday when you're heading to work or home from work or whatever you do in your Friday when I get this done.

It will probably be posted after midnight. So technically Saturday. I'm going to date it for Saturday so that it shows up in your mp3 player your your podcast players mp3 players your phones or whatever app you use to listen to podcasts.

It'll show up there and then sometime later on though. I'll probably backdate it for for September the 12th, but this has been two days now. So on this is Friday night. It was Wednesday before noon that Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

I was actually visiting with some some new friends that had just started attending our church and they came over for lunch and so Becky and I are sitting with them at the table and we're answering some questions and one of the members of my church sent me a private message.

I probably would not have seen this if I hadn't received it from him and just pointing to a news article that was talking about how Charlie Kirk had been shot and I was astonished and we in that meeting right there.

We stopped talking about what we were talking about and prayed for Charlie Kirk and for his family. We did not know for sure yet that he had died only that he had been shot and then I caught up on the news and everything later before I went to class.

I had to teach a class at a little after two o 'clock. So remembering, you know, everything that happened on that day probably you remember where you were when you heard the news that this could be the highest profile assassination in my lifetime that I can think of the United States right now is a wash in it.

It's it's like been the top news story everywhere. I've been online and everywhere else for the last couple of days. So we're going to consider that the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We're also going to I'm also got a question or a comment that I'm going to respond to regarding the murder of Irina Zerutskaya who was the Ukrainian woman who was murdered brutally on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

You probably saw the videos about having a both of these videos awful. Very gruesome. Don't look them up if you haven't seen them. But Charlie Kirk being shot and and this was the video that was going around on social media just days after we had seen the the murder of Irina and that one was hard to stomach that was a video that was difficult to watch.

In fact, one of the very last interviews that Charlie Kirk did before he was killed was with Megan Basham and they were talking about that. They were they were talking about that brutal murder that happened on that train in Charlotte and how so many people have seen this video and how monstrous it was that this guy killed her.

But even that there were people on the train that were not reacting to the fact that she had just been brutally assaulted and hunched over dead right there in her seat. So I've got a comment that I received about that.

We'll be talking about that also and then I'll end on something a little bit more light-hearted because I know the things we're going to talk about here will be very heavy. But how do we as Christians consider these things that are going on in our world right now?

I addressed my church about this. It was a private video that I made for my church just to as a pastor to Talk them through how we think about these kinds of things and they're going to be people out there who will try to radicalize you like they'll use these events to say this is why we as Christians need to do this or that or or it's time for us to take up arms and fight.

I've even seen those kinds of comments. There are pastors out there who have said that it is a must for every pastor in America to address the Charlie Kirk assassination in our sermons on Sunday. No, it's not.

We do not have to say anything about that in our sermons. I probably will but it's not a requirement. It's not like God and his word is imposed upon us. Every single major current event that happens is something that you have to react to.

I think that pastors do need to be wise to what's going on in the culture. It would not be smart of a pastor to close himself off in his ivory tower. So to speak and only be studying theology and not even realize what's going on in the world out there or how to relate to it or talk people through it.

We do need to be aware of those things but it's not that this assassination then becomes the bonafide topic that everybody must be addressing in their sermons and we're devoting all time to Charlie Kirk.

I'm preaching in Romans 7 right now and I'm still going to be preaching in Romans 7 on Sunday. So there are people that you know, they try to radicalize you in the midst of all of this. They tell you how to think and what you're supposed to do and try to draw you into their movement.

This is happening more than ever probably because of social media and people want to create their fan bases. We've already got people trying to move into Charlie Kirk's territory and try to grab his audience for themselves.

So a lot of that is going on. So you got to be careful with what you're listening to. There's always a charge for us as Christians to be self-controlled. It's among the fruit of the spirit in Galatians chapter 5.

It's the last of the fruit of the spirit listed there. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, self-control is the last one on there, but you must be self-control and having self-control.

Means that we're not going to fall apart whenever events like this happen in our world, especially when it seems like the news is just escalating to more and more bad news. We've got to keep it together and trust God.

There's that risk of us overreacting. I think we see that a lot as much as you might see somebody completely fall apart, maybe even lose hope in the midst of a bad news cycle. There's also those people who overreact and they try to overcorrect the situation and that ends up leading to grave error as well.

Trust Christ. He is still on his throne. This is not an hour in which suddenly the church is in grave danger of being lost. If we were to lose all of our freedoms in the United States of America tomorrow, the church would not fail.

Jesus said in Matthew 16, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We will endure even if a nation should fall. I don't think that's what's going to happen, but I'm just saying that if everything were to completely fall apart tomorrow, Christ's promises still stand.

Trust in the Savior. Take hope in knowing your sins have been forgiven and we have our eternity secure with him. I believe that was the case with Charlie Kirk. He believed in Jesus Christ, his sins were forgiven and now he though dead on earth is as alive as he's ever been.

With his Savior in heaven. And that's about as good a segue as any I think into this first question. That's asking about Charlie Kirk and whether or not his murder should be considered martyrdom. Here's the question.

Whether Charlie Kirk Died as a Christian Martyr

Hi brother Gabe and Becky. My name is Gonzalo. I'm sending you this message from Costa Rica. And first of all, I want to thank you for your ministry. It's been a blessing for my life. Today is a dark day.

It's a terrible day. We are suffering for the assassination of a brother Charlie Kirk a couple hours ago and we're praying for his family and his children and this is just a horrible situation brother.

I'm in so much pain right now, but I wanted to ask you brother is Charlie Kirk a Christian martyr? I know that he was mainly a political activist, but I believe his epistemology and his reason behind his activism was because he trusts Jesus Christ as his Savior and he believed in revival and although we didn't agree with everything.

He said he was a Christian. He was moved by his faith. I know in history Christianity hasn't always been persecuted under the name of Christianity per se but people like Marcus Aurelius use them as scapegoats and they use all kind of political and philosophical justifications to persecute Christianity.

So many people will say that Charlie Kirk is not a Christian martyr, but he died because of his political opinions, but I will say no he was motivated but by his faith, I would like to hear your opinion in this and if I'm not completely clear, just let me know.

God bless you brother.

Thank you so much for that question and very well asked and stated and I appreciate that my answer. Of course you asked for my opinion and this is my opinion. My answer to you is yes. He is a Christian martyr.

Charlie Kirk was all about his faith in Christ. So much so that since his assassination, I have never seen the gospel preached or shared as many times on social media in the last two or three days as I'm seeing right now.

It's astonishing. And it's like at least on X it's almost like the the algorithm has been moved into a position of this is what everybody is talking about. So that is what is inundating people's feeds.

With the message of the gospel and Charlie Kirk shared it all the time and I'm seeing clip after clip after clip. There's been clips of him responding to various political issues or moral and ethical issues, but the vast majority of the clips that I'm seeing from Charlie Kirk right now.

Are all about him sharing his faith. Does that make him a martyr in this sense? Because like you said, there are plenty of people who are going to persecute Christians. They won't do it because like will you believe in Jesus?

So I'm going to persecute you. That's not what they say, of course. So how can we know that Charlie Kirk was killed for that reason, even if you know, we don't know fully what all of the the killer's motivations were yet that we like I said, I'm recording this on a Friday night.

They just caught him. I think when I woke up this morning, it the news had just hit that the guy who killed his assassin had been turned into police. So there's still some things about him. We have yet to discover, but how can we know even not knowing fully the Assassin's motives that Charlie Kirk was was a martyr is a martyr for the Christian faith.

Let me just simply ask you this question. If you had been sitting in Charlie seat, do you think that assassin would have killed you? My answer to that with regard to myself would have been 100 Because I not only believe the same things that Charlie believed the stuff that I believed.

The people who hated him would have considered to be even more radical than Charlie Kirk. Yes, he was a Christian politically. He was actually a moderate. I'm going to explain that in a little bit later, but but that's just to say that his his political beliefs were not even as far right as mine are.

And yet Kirk would be killed for that 100 The people that either killed him or rejoiced in him being killed would have also wanted to see what they would have wanted to see the same thing happened to me as well and to you.

They killed Charlie Kirk for the same things that I believe. As we read in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 12. Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived.

Now does that verse say all who have perfect theology will be will be persecuted does it say everyone who is so incredibly outspoken about the gospel and stands on the street and preaches it will be persecuted.

It's all who desire to live a godly life in Christ. Jesus will be persecuted. People will hate you just because you won't fall in with them in all the sins that they love and participate in. We have seen that in our culture how people will hate us just because we're not as depraved as they are.

Peter even talks about this in 1st Peter chapter 4 verse 3 the time is past that suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do living in sensuality passions drunkenness orgies drinking parties and lawless idolatry with respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you.

They hate you because you won't do the same filthy sins that they are doing. We see that in our culture all the time and it is in our face even if you're not in those circles or anywhere near people would hate you for that you see it on social media constantly.

We see it in the videos of Charlie Kirk just interviewing people on college campuses just sitting at a table with a microphone to see who's going to come up and argue with him and you see people hate on him all the time and they call him all kinds of names a bigot a misogynist homophobic Islamic Islam a phobic.

You know, these are the things that they will say that he is and so therefore this is why we don't like him. But at the heart of all of that is his desire for godliness. That's what they hate. They are haters of God even though they don't verbally say we hate God and so therefore we hate you too.

But even though they utter all kinds of evil against you let me go on in first Peter 4 verse 5 they will give account. They will give account to him to God who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

So we must leave it to the hands of God to judge those who judge us. It's earlier in first Peter where Peter says Jesus is our example. And though he was reviled he did not revile in return but he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

Jesus did that. And so we must as well. And there are people who are going to hate us just because we desire godliness. Remember the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 verse 11. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you been reading about that persecution even in our Thursday lessons in the Old Testament in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was hated just because he warned the people of judgment that was to come and to turn from their sin back to God. And people hated him for that message. They persecuted the prophets in these things before us.

They're going to persecute us and hate us as well just because we love and desire godly things. Now like I said the message that Charlie Kirk has been sharing and he shared over and over and over again he has he has been sharing the gospel and been doing so for years.

And the video clips that are now going out as a result of what happened as horrible as it is as tragic as it is. And I share with you the hurt for his wife and his kids who are not going to grow up with a father.

The man was murdered at 31 31. And I'll say that I've evaluated my life in light of what he's done by age 31. And I have a desire to get out with the gospel more than I ever have before just being inspired by this man's tenacity.

I'll probably talk about that another time but but coming back to the gospel that Charlie Kirk knew and shared. Let me play for you three clips. So here's here's examples of three videos that have been going around with Charlie Kirk sharing the gospel and it's so on point.

These videos are so short and yet he summarizes the gospel so succinctly in these three videos. Here's the first one now often these tick-tock videos and the YouTube shorts. They get spliced together to go real real fast.

So in case you missed the question the question at the very beginning is when did you become a Christian. And Charlie Kirk shares his testimony. Listen to this. When did you accept Christ. Fifth grade at Christian.

Heritage Academy. Remember I heard a hot gospel and I heard what happens if you don't give your life to Jesus. And it's very important that when we share the gospel the modern gospel is God has this beautiful amazing wonderful life for you.

And if you give your life to Christ your life will infinitely improve. That is somewhat true but it's very misleading because you're basically trying to sell people in Christianity of a life without difficulty where the better way to teach the gospel is.

Here's the Ten Commandments. How many of these are you violating. Oh you deserve to go to hell. And you probably will unless you give your life to Christ. That is the proper way to evangelize. And so I realized the stakes in fifth grade.

I was like oh my goodness I'm a sinner I'm selfish I'm broken and only thanks to Jesus's perfect sacrifice coming and living a perfect life that I get something I do not earn but has been given to me this.

Free gift of eternal life. That is awesome. That video was what. Less than 60 seconds. Of course it's spliced together to move real quick but still in less than 60 seconds Kirk shared the gospel as clearly like more clearly than I hear many preachers in America ever shared the gospel.

And that's tremendous. That was on a very popular podcast and this is among those videos that are going around. This video right here that I just played has already been viewed nearly a half million times.

That's one video. Here's another one. This one's even shorter than that one. So the question that's being asked here of Kirk is what would you tell someone who has 30 seconds to live. And this video happens to be 30 seconds.

Okay person's about to die in 30 seconds. What's Kirk gonna do. Listen to this.

I'm dying from a gunshot wound but what would you actually want to tell me if I have 30 seconds left to live. In 30 seconds you're about to meet eternal judgment. And so you got 10 seconds left. You're dying from a gunshot wound and there's only one way that you can get bailed out of that.

That's not all the good things you did with a moral scorecard. It's whether or not you have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. That's the only thing that's gonna matter. How do you want to be remembered?

If I die? I want to be remembered for courage for my faith that would be the most important thing.

Okay that last one I forgot that there were actually two clips there so he shared the first one in less than 20 seconds. And there was another clip that was gonna be the next clip I forgot that that was in that video.

But there you have it person's gonna die in less than 30 seconds. He says you're about to meet your judge. The only way you're gonna live and have eternal life is by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that notice the way that question was framed. You're dying as somebody's dying of a gunshot wound. They have 30 seconds to live. What are you gonna tell him. Kirk when he was shot died instantly. I've seen the video like I said it's horrific.

And I've been around that enough. I won't go into details how I know this but I've been around that enough to know that when I saw the shot on the video he was already gone. So he didn't suffer. You may not have 30 seconds after you get shot.

It might be now. And you've got to trust in Jesus Christ. Now you've got this opportunity right now to turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe in him and you will be saved. Pray to him. Ask him to forgive you of your sin.

And it's only through faith in Jesus Christ that we are reconciled with our Creator. We have sinned against a holy God and what we deserve for our sin is judgment eternal hell. But by faith in Jesus Christ there those sins are forgiven and we are clothed in his righteousness.

And even if it's a deathbed conversion you've not had the chance to do anything in your life to try to make up for all the wicked things you've done. It matter. You could have 10 lifetimes. You have a thousand lifetimes.

You'd never be able to make up for all the sin that you've committed against God. Our good deeds are not enough. It's the perfect righteousness of Christ. And by his wounds we are healed. As said in Isaiah 53.

Here is here is that that clip that was at the end it was kind of covered up with music. But here it is a little more clearly. This is just 15 seconds. The question asked of Kirk is how do you want to be remembered.

Listen to this. How do you want to be remembered if I.

Die everything just goes away. How would you if you could be associated with one thing. How would you want to be remembered. I want to be. I want to be remembered for for courage. For my faith that would be the most important thing.

Most important thing is my faith in my life again. Awesome. And that video right there at least the one that I'm looking at it has been shared 15 ,000 times. So this is the message that's been going out after Kirk's death the gospel that he believed in.

And thousands upon thousands possibly even millions upon millions of people are hearing this message some for the very first time I just saw a comment right before I hopped on here to record this episode.

I saw a comment from a gal who was a journalist. I won't mention her name but she said the following. And I looked at her profile. Her profile in her bio says she's Catholic. But here's what she said.

Following the assassination of Charlie I picked up my Bible and haven't been able to put it down for the first time in my life. I'm reading the Bible. I'm reading it front to back and the answers to all of our questions are there.

The thing that Kirk wanted most to be known for his faith is the thing that people are remembering. And I'm just going to say this briefly without going on a on a tear but shame on Christianity today as that magazine is often been called.

I think John MacArthur referred to it as Christianity astray did not present Charlie Kirk as a man to be remembered for his faith but just tried to attach him to a MAGA doctrine. Anyway I'm so ashamed of that magazine.

I mentioned John MacArthur. So there was an interview that Charlie Kirk did with John MacArthur and this was about three years ago. This clips about a minute and a half. We just lost John MacArthur two months ago.

That was. That was in July. So here is this interview between John MacArthur.

And Charlie Kirk listen to this because faith in the truth comes by hearing the.

Truth and just talk for a moment. Just the hope of Jesus Christ. I know for some you know people watching this they've already given their life to the Lord. But we have a lot of followers pastor that follow our organization that are getting closer.

They're starting to drink from the streams of Liberty but they want to find its source. They know there's something that isn't quite fitting in their life but they're looking for salvation. You do it better than anyone else.

Tell about the hope of Jesus Christ. When we're talking about Christ.

We're not talking about ethics although he's the most ethical human who ever lived. We're not talking about being compassionate although he was the most compassionate person who ever lived. We're talking about one who died to pay the penalty for all your sins and having paid that penalty can offer you forgiveness forever and the promise of everlasting eternal joy and life in his presence.

That's what Christ is about. It's not about an ethical model though he is that he is a Savior. And what you need more than anything else is to be delivered from eternal death to be delivered from the power and the presence of your sin.

And that's what Christ offers. And that's why he died and proved that he accomplished it because he rose from the dead triumphant.

Beautiful. And that video has been seen a quarter of a million times and that's just the link that I have. It's probably been shared in other places through other accounts and the this is the message that's going out right now across social media.

Again. I've never seen anything like this before. How many times I'm seeing the gospel being shared over and over again. The White House. The White House shared a video. Let me. This is this has already been seen four million times and they just posted it nine hours ago according to what I've got right here.

So let me play this video that was on the White House account on.

X watch this. Only in America. Is it possible to say you know what I don't like the way the country is going and to do something about it. That risk. Take that leap of faith. Stay involved trust God and act obediently.

Romans 12 to verse that God will use all things all things for good for those who love him. It's bigger than you. I want you to remember. It is bigger than you it's bigger than me. You are here to make somebody else's life better.

The pursuit of liberty and freedom. You know what gives me strength. The hundreds of thousands of you that say Charlie keep going. First Corinthians 5 and 15. So that's all pretty amazing evidence. Not just intra biblical evidence but extra biblical evidence that Jesus Christ was a real person.

He lived a perfect life he was crucified died and rose on the third day and he is Lord and God of all that.

Was shared by the White House account on X. Now what's funny is he got a reference wrong in there. He said it was Romans 12 to and it's actually Romans 828. You know that right that for those who love God all things work together for good.

For those who are called according to his purpose he referenced it as Romans 12 to and and what's funny is there's another video I had this one queued up to but I don't know where I've got it. I'm not gonna look for it now.

But anyway there was another video where he did the same thing. He said Romans 12 to says this and he was actually quoting Romans 828. So that appeared to be a common a common error of his Romans 12 to says and I'm sure he would love this verse 2 and is probably also shared it do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may be able to see and approve of God's will his good pleasing and perfect will don't be conformed to the world be conformed to Christ.

And that too was a message that Charlie Kirk shared. Now if you have listened to me talk about major religious figures before who have recently died and gone to be with the Lord. Like when I talked about James Dobson a few weeks back or even a few years ago when Becky and I talked about Billy Graham you know that I don't pull punches and even in their death I will still call out where their theology was problematic.

And I'm gonna do that now with Charlie Kirk as well. Some of you are aware that I've actually been pretty hard on Charlie Kirk. I've never met the guy I've I've never had a face-to-face conversation with him or anything like that.

But I have called out some wrong things that he said and done. There's a video and even since his assassination there's been people that have come across that video and have sent me messages going brother what's this one person even said.

Do you think this is appropriate to have up in light of everything that's happened. And I said to that person truth is still the truth. And it was a video that I did at the end of 2023. It was the last video that I did at the end of that year where I was talking about how what we call conservative.

Well the common view of conservatism in America right now even by conservatives is fairly moderate. It's more leaning to the left on certain policies ideas even ethical considerations. Charlie Kirk had homosexuals working for him and he even platformed openly gay men as major speakers through TPUSA.

There was something that happened a few years back at a TPUSA event which by the way stands for Turning Point USA. That's the name of Charlie Kirk's organization. And it's gonna continue on even without him.

It's gonna continue strong. I believe that it will. The purpose of this organization was to rally young people in America to become more politically involved. So he had high school chapters he had. He had college chapters.

You know when he was assassinated he was on a college campus in Utah when he was killed. And this is what he was doing traveling this circuit visiting college campuses all over the United States. Estimated over 3 ,000 students were in attendance on that campus mall when Kirk was assassinated.

And by the way he talked for only 10 minutes it had it was only 10 minutes into the thing when he was killed he addressed one subject. And then on the second topic which had to do with we had to do with trans shooters and like mass killings by by trans persons with guns.

And while he was talking about that he was assassinated by a gunman. But the question that he had responded to right before that was about Mormonism. So the last theological subject that he addressed before he died was actually giving approval to Mormons.

Let me play this for you. This is this is a clip that was recorded by somebody who was there. So it's not the audio is not real clear. You're hearing all the crowd around him as well. But this is what Charlie Kirk was saying about Mormonism minutes before he was assassinated.

So I don't know what the question was that was asked of him right before that. So something probably something about him hating on Mormons. And then he says I love Mormons. I love Mormon missionaries.

How the Mormons and missionaries all around the world my friends I do not Mormon missionaries going around the world are spreading a Christless message of a false Christ. The Jesus that Mormons believe in is the invention of Joseph Smith.

It is not the Christ of the Bible. And Jesus warned Matthew 24 that false prophets and false Christs would arise. And the Apostle Paul even rebuking the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 you you put up with false Christs readily enough people who come to you preaching another Jesus.

And of course you're familiar with the rebuke that he gave to the Galatians. About the Galatians believing in another gospel. There is not another gospel he said. But they had turned away from the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ into some other message about a different Christ about a false Christ.

And that's Mormonism. Joseph Smith believed in a Jesus who was the brother of Satan not even making that up. That's exactly who the Mormon Jesus is. He is the literal offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother who had celestial sex and had children.