Learning From the Murder of Charlie Kirk & Iryna Zarutska
I had a completely different blog posting ready for this week, but with the horrific, unprovoked, fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte, North Carolina light rail train, followed by yesterday’s fatal shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado, and then the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, I had to back up, clear my mind, and ask, “What is happening to our world,” and more locally, “What is happening to my home country?” Perhaps, more importantly, “Why is this happening?” I localize my focus with full acknowledgment that similar horrors are taking place across Europe as I type this.
It’s Not About Ideology
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
– Luke 10:29, ESV
What we were witnessing is not ideological or legislative. It is not partisan. This mess is spiritual and biblical. This is not about guns, knives, policies, or politicians. This is about what happens when God is driven from the presence of a people. I intensely dislike writing this type of blog post, but here I plant my flag, stamp my foot, and from here I will not be moved. We have done this to ourselves.
A Product of Our Own Arrogance
During the prophetic ministries of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel, the people of God held to a misguided belief that God could or would never leave his temple. Secure in their belief, the people gave no heed to the warnings of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel. The people ignored their exhortations to repent, lest Jerusalem be destroyed.
Societal and religious leaders rationalized that God would never allow the destruction of a his city and the temple in which he dwelt. In their exuberance, they cried out “This is the temple of the Lord!, The temple of the Lord!, The temple of the Lord!,”1 the way we chant, “USA! USA! USA!” at an international sporting event.
This could never happen to us. This is America! We are invincible.
A false sense of security is a dangerous thing.
I am persuaded to my core that the United States is perched precariously atop an illusory state of invulnerability. Just like the deluded priests in the Jerusalem temple, the people of the United States are moving shamelessly and incrementally from one abomination to the next, screaming “USA! USA! USA!” while systematically driving God out of our lives and away from our nation. We walk in the footsteps of the Jerusalem priests who drove the shekinah2 from the temple in in which God’s glory resided.
Drowning in our self-constructed delusion and stupor, the people of the United States have grown increasingly rebellious, obstinate, and stubborn, duped by our false sense of indestructability … our arrogant, intellectual superiority. We have convinced ourselves that either God does not mind our depravity, or that good is evil and evil is good, or that God does not exist, thus morality and ethics can be whatever we, in our woke, intellectual ascendancy have decided they should be.
The day is upon us when we will successfully drive God totally away, and calamity will befall us as a nation, just as it befell Jerusalem.
When God Runs Out of Patience
They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin.
– Ezekiel 4:17b, NIV-1978
Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will withdraw my favor; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
– Ezekiel 5:11, NIV-1978
I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for all the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices.
– Ezekiel 6:9b, NIV-1978
God in His Sanctuary
When Ezekiel had his vision, it began with God in the temple. God has always wanted to dwell among his people. We started out that way in the garden, but our actions there drove a wedge between us and God. We continue to drive wedges today.
And he said to me, ‘Son of man, do you see what they are doing-the utterly detestable things the house of Israel is doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary?’
– Ezekiel 8:6a, NIV-1978
Shortly thereafter, God directed Ezekiel to the inner rooms of the temple, and there Ezekiel found the elders of Israel worshiping bugs and burning incense to idols. They felt safe doing so, saying, “The Lord does not see us.”3 They were weeping for Tammuz, and bowing down to the Sun – all of it happening inside the temple.
God At the Temple Threshold
When men and women of God live in filth, filling our lives with profane vulgarities, the glory of God will not remain among us. When we work to drive God out of our lives, he will oblige us by leaving.
Then the glory of the Lord rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple.
– Ezekiel 10:4a, NIV-1978
At this point, the glory of God was still with the temple, but it had moved from the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, to the threshold of the temple structure. In this, God is essentially standing in the doorway. And though his glory still filled the temple, and the courtyard was full of the radiance of the glory of God, the people refused to repent.
God At the Courtyard Gate
Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and … stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the Lord’s house.
– Ezekiel 10:18a, 19b, NIV-1978
The glory of God had left the Holy of Holies and moved to the threshold of the temple structure. Now his glory has moved to the gate of the temple courtyard. In piecemeal fashion, the glory of God is being driven from the lives of his people as they ignore the reality and the warnings that they, and their city, are about to be laid waste.
Even from the gate of the courtyard, God continued to reach toward the hardened hearts of headstrong people, pleading with them to renounce their filthy ways, to turn to him with repentant hearts. But they (we) refused. The result of their obstinacy, and ours, is not pretty. God will show himself to be God in the face of our obstinate arrogance.
And you will know that I am the Lord, for you have not followed my decrees or kept my laws but have conformed to the standards of the nations around you.
– Ezekiel 11:12, NIV-1978
God Outside the City
With no repentance to be found, God left the city, and with that we have a distinct separation of the sacred and the profane. What is precious is on the mountain, as what is polluted destroys the city.
The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it.
– Ezekiel 11:23, NIV-1978
What We Must Understand
The slow and gradual way God left his temple, and ultimately the city of Jerusalem, presents us a clear message that God does allow himself to be pushed out of our lives, but that he does so with great reluctance, and that he offers us every opportunity to turn things around, embracing him with love and with repentant hearts.
We also see that though God’s forbearance and longsuffering are extensive, they are not without limits. As Matthew Henry noted, “But, though he bear long, he will not bear always.”
As we push God out of our homes, our schools, our sporting events, our courtrooms and, dare I say it – our churches, there comes a point at which God will throw up his hands and give us exactly what we want. We want him to leave us alone, and he does precisely that. At that juncture, the mess is ours to live in, alone.
Hear it from the apostle Paul in Romans 1.
Pointing to our stubbornness, godlessness, and suppression of truth, Paul highlights God’s reaction to it. Three times, Paul says, God gave them over…
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
– Romans 1:24-25a, NIV-1978 [bold mine]
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
– Romans 1:26a, NIV-1978 [bold mine]
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
– Romans 1:28, NIV-1978 [bold mine]
A common misconception is the idea that since nothing bad has yet befallen me, that God must be okay with my hedonistic lifestyle and worldview. We dare not make the mistake of equating God’s patience with God’s approval.
The people of Israel made this mistake saying, “The days go by and every vision comes to nothing.“4 God was quick to correct that, saying “Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to put an end to this proverb, and they will no longer quote it in Israel.’ Say to them ‘The days are near when every vision will be fulfilled.’”5
As Philadelphia pastor, Joe Focht, is known to say, “It’s not that God is approving of how I’m living my life. It’s just that I’m quickly running out of room.” The bridge is out. There is no more runway. We are ignoring the signs. And when we finally drive over the edge of our cliff, we will be unable to call out to God, for we have driven him from our presence.
Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God,
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he will not hear.
– Isaiah 59:1-2, NIV-1978
For the day of the LORD draws near
for all the nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you.
your deeds will return on your own head.
– Obadiah 1:15, NIV-1978
Obadiah’s prophecy is specifically addressing Edom but, in general, the warning is to “all the nations.” It is a dire warning regarding the pending day of the Lord. There is a day coming when all the nations will be judged by the God who created them, who died to redeem them, and who has endured their rejection since that time.
From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
– Revelation 19:15, NIV-1978
I cannot count the number of nations and empires that once existed, even during my lifetime, that have been driven to their knees and into obscurity.
We have been spared thus far but, as noted above, though God bear long, he will not bear always. But if we will humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and repent of our arrogance and wickedness, I trust that our loving and longsuffering God will hear us from heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land.
Declare a holy fast;
call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
and all who live in the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
and cry out to the LORD.
– Joel 1:14, NIV-1978
1. Jeremiah 7:4
2. Shekinah is the glorious presence of God on Earth.
3. Ezekiel 8:12
4 Ezekiel 12:22 5. Ezekiel 12:23
