Trump says suspect arrested in Charlie Kirk assassination

President Trump announced on Fox & Friends this morning that police have arrested a suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus earlier this week. “I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him,” the president said. He added, “Essentially, someone who knew him turned him in.”

He explained that investigators found the suspect with help from a minister, a member of the US Marshals Service, and the suspect’s father. “We have the person that we think is the person we’re looking for, but they drove into the police headquarters, and he’s there now.” The New York Post is also reporting that law enforcement personnel told them the suspect is a twenty-two-year-old Utah local.

We will obviously know much more about this evolving story in the hours and days to come, but I want to respond to this breaking news with three biblical reflections.

One: Sin is ultimately punished

Four American presidents have been assassinated; each time, their killer was apprehended. You might be thinking that this is unsurprising given the level of police and law enforcement that always respond to such a high-level crime. And you’re right—many crimes indeed go unsolved in our country.

But sin brings consequences beyond legal responses. The person who chooses to drive drunk and dies in a car wreck, the adulterer who loses his marriage and family, and the pastor who loses his ministry over moral failures all illustrate the fact that “whatever one sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

And there is the matter of divine judgment on the other side of temporal sin. God deals with us as gently as he can or as harshly as he must. He withholds his favor in response to unconfessed sin, and if this is not enough, he escalates the consequences of our transgressions. Then, one day, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

It is true that God will forgive every sin we confess to him (1 John 1:9), but the consequences of sin still remain. If I drive a nail into a piece of wood and you remove the nail, the hole is still there.

“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23).

Two: Good ultimately defeats evil

If the person who assassinated Charlie Kirk sought to silence his message, they have already been proven wrong. Far more people know of Kirk’s work and movement now than was the case before he was murdered. There is already talk of creating national “Kirk Lectures” and building platforms for amplifying what he gave his life to do.

The same has been true across history. John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln did not prolong the Civil War. Lee Harvey Oswald’s killing of John F. Kennedy did not forestall the civil rights movement the slain president sought to promote, and arguably compelled it forward. James Earl Ray’s murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not end the great reformer’s work but made him a martyr to his noble cause.

Of course, as with the consequences of sin, the larger verdict sometimes takes longer than we wish. And the consequences to the victims of sin are tragic, even though the ultimate consequences of their suffering are redemptive. For example, the Holocaust arguably propelled the Zionist movement toward the establishment of the State of Israel, but the murder of six million Jews will forever be a crime against humanity.

Dr. King made popular the belief that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” As I often say, God redeems all he allows.

Three: Today is our only day to prepare for eternity

Charlie Kirk woke up on Wednesday morning with no idea he would never see another Thursday. The victims of 9/11 had no idea on Tuesday morning that they would not see another 9/12.

So it can be for any of us. So it will be, one day, for all of us.

Charlie Kirk was ready to meet his Maker. Reports after his death have described his deep spiritual life and growing commitment to serve Christ with his life and work. The incredible response from Christian young people to his death has only amplified his faith through theirs. 

He knew what Scripture proclaims to us all, “Now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Tomorrow is promised to none.

This means not only that we need to be ready for death today, but we need to be ready for a crisis as well. Charlie Kirk is with his Father in heaven, but his wife and small children are left to grieve his loss on earth. However, his wife also made the commitment I am encouraging today. 

Erika Kirk, a former Miss Arizona USA and college basketball player, has a master’s in legal studies and is completing a doctorate in biblical studies. Shortly before her husband was murdered, she posted on X,

“Psalm 46:1—God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Note the tenses: not God “was” or “will be,” but God “is” our “refuge and strength.” Note the plural: “our” refuge and strength, not just hers or mine but yours as well. Note the result: he is a “very present help in trouble.” 

The Hebrew could be translated as, ” He is right now an exceedingly present and available support and strength in the midst of the needs and distresses of this moment.”

Erika knew what each of us can know: God walks with us through our deepest valleys and darkest shadows (Psalm 23:4). He grieves as we grieve and hurts as we hurt (John 11:35). And when the moment comes for our transition from this life to the life to come, he is there to take our hand and lead us home. We fall asleep here to wake in paradise with him.

Then, and now, this fact remains: All of God there is, is in this moment.