Yesterday Was a Dark Day

Do You Feel the World is Broken?

Today is September 11. On this day twenty-four years ago, a group of nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists carried out a coordinated attack upon the United States that resulted in the deaths of nearly three-thousand citizens and friends of the United States. Many of us watched in gut-wrenching horror as we watched a pair of commercial airliners crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, eventually causing them to crumble to the ground like sandcastles. Needless to say, September 11, 2001 was a mournfully dark day in the history of our nation. And we remember that fateful day today on its 24th “anniversary.”

Sadly however, many of us find our attention greatly divided today, because yesterday was a dark day all of its own.

Just about an hour up the road from our church, at 12:30pm, shots rang out at Evergreen High School when a student shot two of his peers and eventually himself. Yet another school shooting in the United States, and yet another one in the state of Colorado. These things should not happen, whether here or anywhere.

Right around the same time in the state of Utah, 31-year-old conservative activist and unapologetic Christian Charlie Kirk was killed by a single gunshot to the neck, shot from an estimated 200 yards away out of a bolt-action rifle, presumably to snuff out his influence among American college students, whom he frequently engaged in public debate about issues of pressing cultural and spiritual importance. A man who consistently engaged in the free exchange of conflicting ideas in a non-violent manner was publicly assassinated for doing so, and to keep him from doing so anymore. Regardless of your political leanings, this is well worth your mourning. And yet it is also right and reasonable for Christians and conservatives to feel this loss with unique intensity.

As a pastor of a local church, it is often difficult for me to know if and when I should speak about public issues like this. Since one of my deepest ministry convictions is that God wrote a book, known to us as the Bible, my most urgent ministry burden is to tell people what God has said in that book. What that means for me is that I must practice an intentional neglect of many current, cultural, hot-button issues when it comes to my public ministry of preaching and teaching. It’s not as if such issues are unimportant; it is that they are not nearly as important as the timeless truths that God delivers to us in Scripture. I cannot speak about everything. That is a simple and undeniable consequence of my humanness and finitude. Therefore, I must be selective about what I speak about, which necessarily means that there are many important things going on in the world that I must avoid speaking about deliberately.

Nevertheless, I will admit that the events of yesterday have me especially weighed down today, and for many reasons. I am sad for our children. The murdering of children is an especially heinous evil. I am sad that many of our young people are being raised in homes where the idea of objective truth is rejected, and where they never experience the love of careful and measured discipline, and where they are told that they can be whomever and whatever they want to be, even if it means having doctors help them mutilate their bodies in order to craft a reality of their own. I am sad that our kids have to even think that another student mowing them down with a gun is a possibility for them. It’s not right. It simply should not be.

I am also sad about the state of our country and that of our public discourse about controversial subjects; particularly about the fact that speaking the truth in an unapologetic manner in public would ever be met with bullets. If you are offended by what some public figure is saying, speak back to them. Use words. I also find it appalling that there are many people today who seem to think that telling someone that his/her views are wrong in a direct and forthright manner warrants a violent response, or at least in some way excuses it. It also troubles me that there are some who believe that offending a person with words is just as hateful as sending a bullet through a person’s neck. Words and bullets are not the same thing.

I am also sad that so many people in our day seem to believe that punishing those who break the law is just as bad as breaking the law itself. This is straight up moral insanity. It’s obviously the product of the nihilistic, relativistic, post-modern water we’ve all been drinking for the past few decades, but it’s insane nevertheless. Look at where the denial of objective truths has brought us, friends. Don’t pretend that this is not where moral relativism leads. No one can be deemed a criminal anymore. No one is wrong. Everyone is excused for their sins. Except for those who those who disagree with those claims, that is. Except for those who want to see the law enforced when people break it.

Yesterday was a dark day. Not merely because of what happened, but because of why it happened.

And it all reminds me of a few of the questions asked and answered in that wonderful song by Andrew Peterson, “Is He Worthy?”:

Do you feel the world is broken?
Do you feel the shadows deepen?

We do, brother. We all do.

Yet is there any more a Christian should think about these things? Any more a Christian pastor could say to help Christians respond to these things? While I certainly don’t have anything to say that will make any of these things easier to process, I do believe that God gives wisdom in the book he wrote to help us think and respond to these things in a way that honors him and is constructive. I’ll offer some of that wisdom, at least the threads of wisdom that have come to my mind since yesterday, here.

First, it is right to mourn.

Here I remember the words of the old, worn, wise man in the book of Ecclesiastes, who said:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4).

The focus of those words is on the uncontrollable nature of the ebb and flow and the ups and downs of life in this fallen world. Uncontrollable to us, that is. But not to God. Contrary to what we want, in this world there are ups and there are downs. In addition to the very good things of life – like babies being born, and harvests being reaped, and buildings being built – there are also the hard, painful, and traumatic things of life – like death, and war, and hatred.

And contrary to the inclinations of many Christians today who want to keep everything positive and encouraging, those painful things are supposed to be mourned. Not ignored, but mourned before God. Godly people are not always happy people. There are times when they will be the most sorrowful people of all, because they are the ones who are most in tune with the fact that this world is broken and crying out for redemption. And while we wait for that redemption to come, there are times when it is fully appropriate to really cry out with it.

If you are sad about yesterday, good for you. You don’t need to just get over it. You don’t need to only focus on positive things. You can mourn. And if you long for the day of redemption like you should, you will know that what happened yesterday deserves your mourning.

Second, God is still on his throne.

As the Psalmist proclaims,

“For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. … God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.” (Psalm 47:2, 8)

That truth is stated as a fixed reality in this world. God sits, like, right now, on his holy throne. He was seated on that throne when the sons of Korah wrote those words. He is seated on his throne today. And he was seated on his throne yesterday when the shots rang out in Evergreen and on the campus of Utah Valley University.

While we do not know what exactly his purposes are in this tragedy, we do know that our confusion is merely ours, and not his. God still reigns, even in things like this.

Third, Jesus will balance the scales of justice eventually.

Earlier today I was listening to Johnny Cash sing that old folk song, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” and I found in those words the answer to how injustices like this will eventually be resolved.

“You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down”

The “Man in Black” is only saying what God himself has said in many places, namely that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31). The man Paul is preaching about there in Acts 17 is Jesus, the one whom God raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. At this point in time it doesn’t look as if Charlie Kirk’s killer has been captured, but whether he ever is or not, eventually he will stand before Christ in judgment. And if he has not repented and trusted in Christ alone as his only Savior and Lord before that day, God will cut him down.

No one gets off the hook, friends. Every sinner will be held to account and every sin will be judged, either at the cross of Christ or in the fires of the judgment Jesus will bring to the world on that day God has appointed.

Fourth, revenge is not the way.

I’ve seen a handful of angry, sorrowful friends of mine on social media in the past 24 hours suggest that it may be time for Christians and/or conservatives to start fighting back against their enemies in more violent ways of their own. I assure you that it’s not.

Consider Paul’s words in Romans 12:

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:17-19).

That would seem to settle this issue, or at least it should. It’s not as if we have no response to give, however. We can engage our ideological opponents with words of Gospel wisdom and truth. We can encourage one another in the face of social hostility. We can share the Gospel with non-Christians who don’t agree with our politics or our views about God and sin, Christ and eternity. But revenge is not ours. God will repay. And that needs to be enough for us now, because it will most certainly be enough for us eventually.

Fifth, it is fitting to pray.

The Scriptures are stuffed full of commands and invitations to turn to God in times of trouble. “Call up upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me,” says the psalmist in Psalm 50:15. “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer,” says the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:12.

Pray in the day of trouble, and be constant in prayer, says the Lord.

Times like this ought to alert the church (and the world) of our desperate need for God. We can pray that justice will be served for law-breaking murderers. We can pray that God will comfort the families of those who have lost loved ones to such senseless acts of violence. We can pray that God will bring the church around them to comfort and encourage them. We can pray for boldness to speak the truth of Christ to those who might very well hate us for it, simply because we love them and care for their souls. We can pray that our governing leaders will respond justly and righteously to these situations. We can pray that the Gospel will continue going out to the ends of the earth, so that sinners might be saved from the wrath of God that is coming to the world at the return of Christ.

We can pray in these ways. And we should.

Finally, courage will be needed for the days ahead.

Yesterday was a reminder that being a Christian in public in the United States, does not come without a cost. Simply declaring more empirically obvious truths like males and females are different, and that it is good for men and women to get married and have children, and that those with gender dysphoria are not helped by people who encourage them to alter their physical bodies to comply with their subjective thoughts about themselves – even saying such patently obvious things such as these – may get you into real trouble in our day.

And yet, being a Christian in public has always put people in danger, and Christ has been promising persecution to come for his people from the very beginning. Remember Jesus’ words in John 15:18-21:

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” (John 15:18-21)

Surely it’s on this basis that his Apostle says very simply: “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:10). Too many Christians are surprised when the world hates them. They are clearly not taking Jesus seriously here.

And yet Jesus also never appeals to this hatred as an excuse for his followers to stop speaking the truth about him. In fact, he says that “whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26). Let that sink in. The fact is that cowards end up in the same place as the sexually immoral. See Revelation 21:8. Now is no time for cowardice, but for courage.

I realize that none of these truths can turn back the clock and make it as if yesterday never happened. Yesterday happened, and there will likely be other days just like it until Jesus returns. Only he can make all things right and all things new.

And yet, just as Andrew Peterson asks in that song I mentioned at the beginning of this post:

But do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through?

Yes, we know that too. And days like yesterday make us long for that day to come very soon.