Witnessing Charlie Kirk’s assassination on 10 September shook me to the core—I grieved as if I had lost my own brother, a sorrow that lingers deeply even now. Having followed him closely for nearly a decade, encouraged by his courage to play my own part in the fray, I spent days and nights in profound mourning; never before had the death of someone I had never met affected me so. In the weeks that followed, I realised why: we had witnessed the death of an anointed one, much like David’s lament over even the wicked King Saul, simply because “the Lord’s anointed” had fallen (2 Samuel 1:14). Compounding this was the pure evil from the Left—openly celebrating his murder and spreading lies about it—which affected me deeply.
Have you ever paused amid the clamour of our cultural storms and wondered: What if the strategies we trusted to soften the Gospel’s edges have only left the church adrift and compromised? In Kirk’s life and martyrdom, such questions ring out as a clarion call: here was a prophet, urging bolder faithfulness to God’s unchanging Word.
Consider the fruit of what was once called wisdom: the “Third Way” of Big Eva, the seeker-sensitive approach of the 1990s and 2010s. It aimed to bridge kingdom and culture with gentle words. Credentialed leaders urged us to temper our message, framing the Gospel as an “off-ramp” from Leftism—a non-offensive exit. “How else,” they asked, “can we reach the unchurched if we risk alienating them with talk of sin?” We planted churches with polished services and sermons without offence. We related to the Left, accommodated it, and watered down the message to avoid offending liberal attendees. Demographics and secularism, we were told, required this; otherwise, Christian truth would seem irrelevant.
But what was the harvest? Thirty years wasted in compromise, a church full of attendees but lacking transformed lives. No awakening, no widespread repentance—just accommodation that blurred the church’s distinctiveness. “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matthew 5:13). This is the verdict on our efforts: a body more aligned with the world’s values than the cross’s demands. We delayed the news of our sinfulness and doom without God’s mercy, offering persuasion without brokenness. Repentance—the turn from self-salvation to Christ alone—was sidelined. In its place, a generation that nodded but did not commit. How many souls, lulled by our caution, now drift further away?
Enter Charlie Kirk, a tall, rugged figure who built his platform with determination, unfiltered by seminary or college training. What if God chose such a one to shame the wise? “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27). Kirk read the times clearly, standing firm on God’s Word. He never compromised zeal for acceptability. He confronted liberalism on college campuses, using conservative politics as an on-ramp to the Gospel, with truth that offended yet led to Jesus.
Like John the Baptist in the wilderness, Kirk proclaimed repentance before faith, echoing: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). He rebuked the Left with Scripture, exposing sin’s pride, then pointing to the Saviour’s grace. Where others accepted decline as inevitable—“We must change how we speak, or perish”—Kirk rejected it, shifting the approach. The result was widespread evangelism that challenged secularism. Yet his martyrdom—struck down in his prime—sealed his legacy. By some accounts, in the three weeks after his assassination, especially at the Memorial Service, more people encountered the Gospel than in the previous three decades combined. One event produced the largest gospel outreach in history. Does this not show God’s way of using one man’s sacrifice to revive dry ground?
In 1960, A.W. Tozer described such a leader:
“If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. There must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions. Nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.”
A. W. Tozer, Of God and Men (1960)
Charlie Kirk was that man—direct, opposed to the world for souls’ sake. His life challenged our caution; his death sparks our action. God used the uncredentialled to deliver our era’s greatest message.
And what of the evil in his slaying? Tens of thousands online gloated over his death, with unmasked hatred—many even lost jobs for it. Does this not fulfil Scripture’s warning? “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1-4). The love of many grows cold, as foretold: “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). It echoes Revelation’s two witnesses, slain while people “will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 11:10). Kirk’s murder exposed open hatred; evil now acts without restraint.
Church, will we awaken to these times? We are at the end of the age—polarisation increasing, the Age of Grace closing like Noah’s Ark. “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still” (Revelation 22:11). Urgency must drive our Gospel proclamation, not as comfort, but as a clear call. The past cautious way yielded no real fruit. We must advance boldly, with the love that overcomes death.
Yet here’s a sobering realisation: Not all in the church’s fold will enter the Bridegroom’s chamber. Christ’s body is broad, but the Bride is prepared through deeper grace. As one rib from Adam formed Eve, so a remnant emerges for rapture—not by works, but Spirit-filled readiness. Salvation is by grace through faith alone, but rapture is a reward for the prepared. Recall the ten virgins: “But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps… And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you’” (Matthew 25:4, 8-9). All waited for the Groom, but only the prepared entered. “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (Matthew 25:13). Let us be those “alive and remaining” Paul described: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Wake up, church! Prepare your lamps, seek the oil of Spirit’s fullness, before the door closes suddenly!
So, what now? Will we hold to failing methods, or embrace change? Will dissonance lead to denial or repentance? The times call for prophets like Kirk, shaped at the cross, not in safe halls. Let his blood awaken us to bold grace, repentance, and bridal readiness. The Groom delays, but comes. May we be ready, lamps lit, voices clear: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
