Assassination Attempt of Former President Trump—the Peril and Promise of Our Times
2:13
Terrible events have a way of testing us and showing us who we are. We saw evidence of this in the horrific shooting of five men this past Saturday, July 13—one famous and four previously unknown.
As President Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, seven or eight gunshots sounded. He clapped his hand to his ear and went down, immediately enfolded by the Secret Service. Simultaneously, bystander Corey Comperatore instinctively pushed his wife and daughter to the ground, shielding them with his body as a bullet struck a fatal blow to his head. Two other members of the crowd, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, suffered nonlethal hits. Finally, a sniper killed the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Then—in one of the most shocking and moving moments in American history—President Trump stood back up. Bloodied, he mouthed the word fight to the stunned crowd, raising his fist in a show of defiant strength.
In Comperatore's heroic act of love and the president's show of courage and strength, we see both the peril and promise of our times. The ultimate price may be required, but if people will stand for what is good and true and beautiful, many will rally. Amidst terrible evil, Trump and Comperatore have shown us the way forward. Men, called to be protectors in the mold of Jesus Christ, must guard our loved ones, whatever the cost (Ephesians 5:22—33). Beyond this, every man and woman who has been bullied and silenced for loving God's truth must rise, look to the heavens, and fight the good fight for the Lord.
As Christians, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Our warfare is against spiritual powers of darkness that seek to destroy everything good around us (Ephesians 6:10—20). In the strength of God, we oppose them. In that solidarity, we pray, we vote, and we share God's truth and grace. We also stand for his goodness in the public square—defiant against evil, confident in knowing that our Lord goes before us.
May this be a wake-up call for all ambassadors of the kingdom of God as well as every American.
