I have heard a wise saying spoken throughout the years. "A man never dies so long as his name is spoken and his memory is kept in the hearts of others."
The idea is simple. So long as you keep talking about the impact a man made on your life, he keeps living through that impact — and through the stories that go on shaping other people long after he is gone.
It is in this way that Charlie Kirk lives on.
My wife and I sat around the dinner table with our children last night. It was the night of the one-year anniversary of Charlie's death.
We talked about how, in one way, it is hard to believe it has already been a year.
In another way, it feels like he has been gone for five or ten. He is sorely missed.
The Man We Actually Miss
In the Sherman family, Charlie is not missed so much for his political accomplishments and contributions as he is for his standards — as a godly man, as a family man, and for the challenge he put in front of young men to become REAL men.
Not some castrated version of manhood that our society currently holds up as the ideal. The biblical version. The man who is gentle and caring and kind to his wife and his children, and who is also fiercely protective over them — willing even to die to make sure they are not harmed.
Not the boy who plays video games all day and still lives with his parents at thirty years old with no desire to step out and forge his own destiny. Not the one who tries to sleep with as many women as he can.
No. None of those.
Charlie challenged men to love their wives, to honor them in their day-to-day activities, to work hard, and to be willing to do what it takes to provide for their families.
The man who gets real satisfaction and a real sense of purpose out of working hard every day to take care of the people God gave him.
That is the contribution I miss so much from him.
I marveled at how our youth — college-age kids, and young men specifically — listened to Charlie so intently. He impacted them in a way that no other voice in America could.
Sure, you had the fruit loops who were brainwashed by the left, the ones who would always come to the microphone to ridicule him, or to vaunt themselves up as superior in order to make Charlie look strange or stupid. Fine. But he was making an undeniable impact on the hearts of tens of thousands of college-age kids by his biblical stands and by his unapologetic desire to hold to the scriptural view of what a man and a woman really are.
This is why the wicked cheered so loudly when he was murdered. They were finally rid of an aggravating voice of truth that would not back down.
A Preview of Revelation 11
From a biblical standpoint, that cheering gave us a preview of something the Bible says is still coming.
Revelation chapter 11 tells us of two witnesses who will boldly speak the truth during the first three and a half years of the tribulation period, and the world will hate them. But God gives them special protection for that first half of the seven years, so that everything the world tries to do to kill them does not work. They cannot be destroyed.
Then that supernatural protection is removed, and these two prophets are murdered. And God, showing once again that He is God, resurrects them right there three days later in the sight of everyone (Revelation 11:11).
But before all of that — while they are lying dead in the street — look at what the world does:
"And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth." (Revelation 11:10)
Gifts. Merriment. Celebration. Over two dead men of God.
Charlie's death showed me that our world, spiritually speaking, is already in the exact dark frame of heart and mind that Revelation 11 will require.
That frame of heart used to read like distant prophecy. Now it reads like a comment section.
The Tests We Have Already Been Given
We have been shown some things over the past few years that are rather telling when it comes to the topic of end-times prophecy.
The COVID-19 mess was a psychological test — to see if the world was ready to turn on their own loved ones in order to comply with a godless dictate of the state. That willingness is absolutely necessary before a mark of the beast system can ever be installed.
Then Charlie Kirk's death was another test. It showed that this world violently hates anyone who stands for God, and hates them enough to celebrate when one of them is killed.
Wicked indeed.
I vividly remember those days and weeks after Charlie was murdered, and just how burdened I was to see those wicked individuals celebrating, ridiculing, and making jokes about a man of God, a family man — yes, a good man who was murdered in cold blood.
I remember quoting the first part of Psalm 7:9 in my heart multiple times throughout those days: "Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end..."
Friends, it will come to an end. One day.
And I believe that day is closer than most people are comfortable admitting.
Until That Day
You see, the world cannot keep going the way it is going much longer.
I believe there is a moment coming when God lifts the church up off this earth and pours out His undiluted wrath upon those who ridicule, mock, and murder His servants. I believe that day is coming very, very soon.
Until that day comes, Brother Charlie, we will try our best to honor you the only way that actually matters — by living for Jesus, the One whom you so often pointed others to, and by remembering your name and telling others about the way you have impacted our lives.
We do miss you, sir.
Rest in victory until we see you again.