Targets

The devil missed.

Crowd at Charlie Kirk event, from DW.com

I’m having trouble even writing in the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk. Plenty of words, worthy and worthless, are already piled high as the Himalayas. So I’ll try to be brief.

Evil targets God’s people, but winds up shooting itself,

And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. (Revelation 20:9-10)

The dead who die in Christ — Charlie Kirk being one — are ultimately missed shots when it comes to the devil’s agenda. They rest with God, and gain everlasting peace and joy. All the devil gets out of killing them is the temporary rush of inflicting damage. It’s cosmic vandalism —but the devil loses the souls of those who die in the Lord.

The devil knows this. He takes these shots just the same with two larger hopes:

1. The saints - those who belong to God - will lapse into despair, anger, fear or some other emotion that will make them more vulnerable to the devil’s deceits;

2. Those souls already deceived into serving him will stay the course and wind up in the fire with him. He’s the ultimate loser, his humiliation temporarily soothed only by his ability to trick others into being tormented forever and ever with him.

In a lesson many will hear this Sunday, we see people successfully targeted for spiritual deception,

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

But then Moses targets the people — with intercession for mercy. He pleads with God to spare them,

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?” … And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

Jesus targets deceived people as well,

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” To which Jesus responded with a story, the punchline of which is, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

There are/will be/always have been piles of words on what THE CHURCH MUST DO ABOUT THE CURRENT CRISIS! And I won’t denigrate all these, because some might very well contain wisdom for practical ways to love our neighbors and comfort some of the world’s pain.

But I am sure that we need to work on “target aquisition,” interceding in prayer for souls deceived by the devil, and placing ourselves among them compassionately to offer the salvation to life that is in Jesus Christ.

Charlie Kirk did that. And he wound up executed, in imitation of the Lord who for love of sinners went to the cross. When we target for salvation, we become targets for hate.

But when we hit some targets (as Jesus did and keeps on doing forever, and as Charlie Kirk did with many young souls), the result is not vandalism, but renewal like this:

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. (The Apostle Paul, 1 Timothy 1:12-14)

Let us pray,

Merciful God, you desire not the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn to you and live; and through your only Son you have revealed yourself as the God who pardons iniquity. Have mercy on the unrepentant and those who do not believe [especially _____]. Awaken in them, by your Word and Holy Spirit, a deep sense of their sinfulness and peril. Take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of your Word. Grant them to know and feel that there is no other Name under heaven given among men by which they must be saved, but only the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so bring them home and number them among your children, that they may be yours for ever; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer 2019, p. 665)

O God, the Creator of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you in Jesus Christ; in whose Name we pray. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer 2019, p. 655)