Sermon 9-14-25

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Utilizing the Gospel lesson for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost. Luke 15:1-10.

Evil Goes Too Far

On Wednesday, September 10th, Christian apologist and American patriot advocate, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated in front of his family at a rally on a campus in Utah. On September 11th we memorialized the residents of West Hempstead who perished in the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. On the evening of the 10th, President Trump equivocated terrorism with political assassination. I think that’s wisdom. The two are nearly identical. Recently there have been several assassins in schools. Assassins on rooftops. Assassins on public streets and on public transit. It’s all terror. Therefore, in the wake of this most recent assassination, I think the engines of government opposing terror are going to get cranked up several notches by the present administration. After all, there were two attempts on the president’s life last year.

The accused assassin of Charlie Kirk has lawyered up and is invoking his 5th amendment rights. So I don’t think we’re going to learn much from him. The government is trying to build a case, so I don’t think we’ll learn much from them either. It’s the internet sleuths we’ll have to rely on for information. But what we know so far is that Tyler Robinson is twenty-two; the son of a retired deputy sheriff. His parents are conservatives and registered republicans. His father serves as a youth minister in an unnamed church. His father turned him in. Family members described him as a person who has gotten more political in recent years. To a family member he recently announced hatred for Charlie Kirk and everything Kirk represents. It’s also beginning to come out from people who know him that he was the only leftist in an otherwise conservative family. A schoolmate says he began to move left in his high school sophomore year. It’s also now come out that he has a lover transitioning from male to female.

We’ll probably never know the precise timeline of this young man’s conversion from a conservative American to some kind of radical willing to pull a trigger on a rooftop against a person he believed to be public enemy number 2. But a conversion experience it was. It would be good to know who the preachers are that directly converted this young man so that they and their backers can be sued. We do know who the ancestors of his preachers are — Marx, Lenin and the many others who preached political violence as the solution to all human problems.

Two weeks ago, in a sermon I titled, “Fantasy Games and Lies,” I pointed out the danger of constantly calling president Trump “Hitler.” It makes “Nazis” out of all who may think down the same paths of Americanism as the president. And what should you do with “Nazis?” Well, it was done.

And now even Bill Maher says calling people Hitler is wrong. It makes it easier to justify killing. Well, Bill, there’s only one problem. You’re ignoring your part in the drama — as one who led people to godless atheism in this country and one who supported all the leftist talking points.

In 2016 Charlie Kirk himself said, “You can tell a lot about a person by how they react when someone dies.” Indeed, you’ll be able to tell a lot about me. And I’ll be able to tell a lot about you. But, there’s the reaction of the much greater world around us. And the internet greatly expands the world.

Are there people celebrating Charlie’s death on the internet? Yes. Are there people mourning his loss? Yes. Not the least of which are his widow and two orphans. Are there people who are enraged? Yes. Are there people calling for the elimination of the left with all its lies, vitriol and violence? Yes. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. However, how to go about doing it is the big question. For, it’s easy to become just like the left in the process of eliminating the left. Tyranny can’t get rid of tyranny. It just replaces one tyranny with another.

Now, at the ballot box, the U.S. took a step in eliminating the left last November. And that step seems to be producing results. We elected someone who has first hand experience being tortured by the left. In his administration he has placed in authority others who have been tortured by the left. As a result, so far we’re getting a very strong but properly measured resistance to the left from within the national government. The president knows how to read and support what civil righteousness still remains in the American heart despite the Marxist attempt to exterminate it. He knows how to turn that civil righteousness against the left. All is not lost.

And the remainder of that civil righteousness has shown itself in another way since the George Floyd riots — namely the pocketbook. The makers of Bud Light learned the hard way that you can’t sell more beer by going woke trans. Right now Cracker Barrel is learning the hard way that eliminating Americana from the menu doesn’t expand business. And Disney is learning that preaching feminism and sexually grooming children doesn’t pay so well.

Charlie Kirk also took a step in resisting the left way back in 2012 by forming Turning Point USA. That step also seems to be producing results. Charlie came up with a format of open, respectful dialogue on college campuses — the very nerve centers of leftist indoctrination. He courageously and daringly promoted historic conservative Christian thinking in a very hostile environment. He called his events, “Prove Me Wrong.” It was a challenge to the left.

Initially it was the entire campus against Charlie at his events. But Charlie had a way of respecting everyone, winning arguments and persuading souls. His work began to turn the tide against leftist thinking. Someone in dialogue with him at a recent event noted that it had become a pleasure to see the support he was gaining among young people at his events. It was no longer Charlie versus the entire campus. Online there are testimonials from young people of how Charlie guided them into seeing the light. I saw a high school teacher talk about how her students were talking about Charlie Kirk all morning the day after his assassination. Charlie was very effective, very persuasive. Why do you think he was assassinated?

We know from 2020 that leftist propaganda raised a shadow-army of rioters. Now, it seems that leftist propaganda is raising a shadow-army of assassins. Therefore, should conservatives use their guns in response? I don’t think it will be necessary. For, Yahweh only lets Satan go so far, and then begins to reign him in. Let’s consult Scripture about this.

In the book of Esther we have a remarkable narrative. A man named Haman rose to power in the ancient Persian Empire. He had the emperor’s ear in everything. But Haman became an enemy of the Jews and attempted a final solution — the extermination of all Jews everywhere in the Persian Empire. But, Yahweh used the emperor’s Jewish queen, Esther, to turn the heart of the emperor against Haman. And Haman was hung on the gallows he had built to hang Jews. Satan could only go so far.

There’s also an interesting passage in Psalm 35. In this psalm, David asks Yahweh’s protection against his enemies. We read in Psalm 35:7-10, “7 For without cause they hid their net for me; without cause they dug a pit for my life. 8 Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it! And let the net that he hid ensnare him; let him fall into it — to his destruction! 9 Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD, exulting in his salvation. 10 All my bones shall say, ‘O LORD, who is like you, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him?’”

Satan always overplays his hand. Evil always goes too far. And when it does, the power of evil eventually snaps like the rotten cord that it is. Don’t you find it remarkable that Letitia James, who tried Mr. Trump on mortgage fraud, is being charged with mortgage fraud herself? It looks like Adam Schiff is also guilty of the same thing. The Lord lets them fall into their own devices, into the traps they set for others. This is the Lord working His justice.

Nothing can stop the power of Yahweh’s righteousness. For a time evil may be permitted to suppress righteousness with everything it has. But, true righteousness will eventually triumph. The Creator of the universe guarantees that in His Word. As it says in Proverbs 13:9, “The light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked will be put out.” In the course of Christianity’s first 300 years, the entire might of the Roman Empire was thrown against Christianity time and again. The result? Christianity grew until Emperor Constantine finally surrendered to the carpenter from Nazareth as his Lord and his God. Does leftism even stand a chance?

And now, people are finally recognizing that leftism is evil at its core. I recently heard TV personality, Pierce Morgan, speak about how he was pushed to the right by the violence inherent in leftism. It seems that Charlie Kirk’s assassination has now opened many eyes to leftist violence. On Saturday I was hearing reports about a massive trend on social media — videos going viral of people renouncing and divorcing themselves entirely from the democrat party in moral revolt against the leftist celebrations of Kirk’s death. This doesn’t mean that there are lots of videos. It means that the videos that exist have been watched millions of times. Has Satan overplayed his hand? We’ll know more in the days ahead.

I saw a video in which a young, leftist, non-religious woman confessed that she is not only being pushed right but being pushed toward God by the evil that is being exposed. If this video represents a trend, then the fields may be ripe for harvest in ways we haven’t seen for a long time.

Indeed, I revisited my sermon from July 4th weekend in 2024. In that sermon I analyzed an interview of Tucker Carlson by a podcaster named Shawn Ryan. In that interview both men confessed that they had been non-religious for a long period of time in their lives. But the manifestation of pure evil they were seeing in the left had consequently pushed them back to their Christian roots. One thing Carlson and Ryan agreed on was that the struggle we’re now engaged in is a spiritual struggle. Previously they wouldn’t have considered the spiritual aspect of it. But they discovered that Satan is real. So, it was a logical next step to reconsider the question: “Is God real?” Will a similar thing happen to many in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and all these other assassinations? 

If so, we need to be ready to receive tax collectors and sinners exploring for God. There are also the young people who have already been influenced by Charlie Kirk. We need to be here for them. I also suspect that as his name becomes a household name there will be many more young people looking at Charlie’s videos online. We need to be ready to receive those searching as a result.

Today and next Sunday, our lessons revolve around Yahweh’s heart for the souls He has created who have strayed from Him into rebellion and foolishness. If that soul returns to Yahweh, Jesus tells us in Luke 15:7, “. . . ‘there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’” That is fabulous. Therefore, are we ready to speak gently, respectfully, but firmly about the Jesus who has rescued us from sin, death and the power of the devil?

Long ago I discovered that Yahweh has many people on sort of a factory assembly line of conversion. Chances are that any one conversation we have with any particular individual will only be one of many from different sources that may eventually result in conversion. Each of us gets a chance to do our part on the assembly line, and then pass that person on to the next. However, occasionally, we receive the privilege of being the last person on the assembly line who gets to bring that person fully across into the Kingdom of God. May it be so more and more for all of us in the days ahead.

Don’t be afraid. The Lord will give you the words. And if you’re not good at handling attacks and things you can’t answer, fear not. You can always tactically withdraw from the conversation by saying, “I’ll have to think about that.” And if this is someone you see on a regular basis, talk to me about how they stumped you. I’m certain the Lord will give us His wisdom for proceeding in the relationship. For as Jesus said in Luke 15:10, “. . . ‘I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’” That’s straight from Yahweh’s heart. He wants that person. And you’re privileged to be His agent. Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the ESV.