In the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, a friend of mine sent me a message with a Bible reference. Isaiah 29:20 and 21.

I read them, and I realized that my friend was right. What happened to Charlie Kirk, or more specifically, the kinds of people who did this to Charlie Kirk, were described in the words written by the prophet Isaiah more than 2,500 years ago. In chapter 29 of his book, Isaiah is speaking of a future return of wisdom and the resulting tearing down of evil people or the terrible ones as he describes them. In the New King James Version, Isaiah 29:20 and 21 reads, “For the terrible one is brought to nothing. The scornful one is consumed. And all who watch for iniquity are cut off, who make a man an offender by a word, who lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and turn aside the just by empty words.“

Now, I realize not everyone grew up reading old English, so let me break this down for you so you can see just how perfect a description this is of the people responsible for murdering Charlie and the people who are responsible for attacking his legacy ever since his death. The last line of verse 20 says, “All who watch for iniquity are cut off.” Now, this is a perfect description of woke. They watch for iniquity. Meaning in this case, they’re perpetually offended. They’re quick to find fault. They have cancelled culture on a hair trigger and are always watching for their next opportunity to be upset.

Right now, as I record this in 2025, we are thankfully emerging out of a spasm of madness called wokeness that has consumed the world for the last six or seven years where the most powerful words on earth only a few years ago were, “I’m offended.” People with no other redeeming virtues gained power, leverage, social status, and even promotion, and financial gain through the courts by watching for iniquity. By watching for someone to do something that they could be offended or upset by and then weaponizing it. Well, these people are being cut off as we speak. We are witnessing a global return to excellence and we are witnessing the necessary rejection of identity politics and victim status that goes along with focusing on excellence.

It was already happening but the murder of Charlie Kirk has speed things up enormously.

The world is moving on from wokeness. And these perpetually offended wokesters are fast becoming a new generation of bitter clingers who will forever look back on the early 2020s with fondness, remembering when pronouns were in email signatures, when mental illness was celebrated in public, and they could win an argument just by being offended.

But let’s get back to Isaiah 29 because the good stuff’s actually in verse 21. Remember Isaiah is talking about these terrible ones, these scornful people who watch for iniquity. And he describes them further saying those who make a man an offender by a word. Now there’s two ways to interpret this. One is that they use their words to lie about someone to make them an offender. But the other way which is equally valid in the original Hebrew is that they make villains out of people who haven’t done something wrong but out of people who have said something which they believe to be wrong. They make a man an offender by a word.

In the original Hebrew, both of those ideas are equally valid. Part of wokeness was the phrase words are violence. Remember that one? I always found that funny because if words are violence, then how come no one’s ever been punched in the pronouns? This making an offender by a word is exactly what they’re doing with Charlie right now. They’re posting all over the internet saying he deserved it because he said mean things.

And look at the next line in Isaiah 29. They lay a snare for him who reproves at the gate. Now, we need to dive into a little bit of history here. A reproof is an old word for a correction. Someone who tells you that you’re wrong. And the gate, well, in ancient world cities, the city elders, the administrators, and the judges would do their work at the gate. So to be someone who reproves at the gate means that you are a prominent public figure who corrects people, points out where they’re wrong, argues with them, and debates with them in the most public of places. This line from this verse in Isaiah is describing Charlie and his work. And it’s describing the people who laid a snare for Charlie.

Last night, Isaiah 29:21, they turn aside the just, that is, the people who are right, the people who are correct.

They turn aside the just by empty words. Charlie’s haters, these terrible ones, are dismissing even now the legacy of Charlie Kirk with their empty words and their twisting and emptying of his words. They’re quoting selected sentences devoid of any meaning and context that gave it its meaning in the first place. But be encouraged because Isaiah was prophesying to the children of Israel specifically in his time. But this whole chapter, well, it’s going to sound pretty familiar to those of us who are alive today. The chapter speaks of a people who have turned back away from God, denied their creator. The clay saying to the potter, “He did not make me.” And God in his grace and mercy will to quote, “Bring the terrible ones to nothing and cause the people to turn back to him.” Now, I’m paraphrasing an entire chapter in a sentence, so it’s not going to be precise. And no, I’m not saying that this chapter in the Bible was exclusively written about this particular moment today, nor was it written exclusively about Charlie. These are universal, timeless principles.

But I believe that this 2,500-year-old prophecy from Isaiah shows us a timeless truth. It reveals the heart of God and what he will do if we call on him. And I believe it reveals what God is doing among us right now because a lot of us have been calling on him. And I believe that God is answering that prayer, including answering through the tragic death of Charlie Kirk.

But how can an assassination be God answering prayer? That sounds like blasphemy, and that’s a fair question, but hold that thought for one minute because we know that God promises to work all things together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes. So stick with me for a minute. Because God is good all the time and we know that to be true. But how?

I believe it’s fair to say that modern Western culture has descended into a death cult as morally bankrupt as ancient pagan cultures.

Even though it looks very different today, our modern death cult is complete with child sacrifice and the worship of death, including, by the way, the sacrifice of children. Now the children of Israel at certain times in their history also sacrificed children to Moloch. They adopted the gods of the people that they had conquered and sacrificed to them. But despite their depravity then and our depravity today sacrificing children through human abortion, God has not abandoned us.

But despite their depravity then and our depravity today sacrificing children through human abortion, God has not abandoned us. And although we don’t deserve him, and I certainly don’t deserve him, I’m not sitting here pretending I’m holier than thou. I believe we are watching in real time as God does a beautiful work of mercy inside all of us just as he did for the children of Israel despite their many sins. I believe God is doing among us today what he said in Isaiah 29. He is tearing down the terrible ones, consuming the scornful, cutting off those who watch for iniquity, those who make a man an offender by a word, those who lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, those who turn aside the just by empty words.

Now, I’ve got a lot more scriptures that we need to talk about today. But before we get to that, my name’s Topher Field. This is the Topher Project. Although this video is very different to my usual, it is for the same purpose as always, which is to help you to make sense of the nonsense, cut through the noise, and understand the world and what’s happening in the world better than what you did before. Now, I’ve got a bunch of stuff, books and all the rest of it. But I’m not going to promote that in this video. That’s not the place for it. But if you do want to find out more about my work or support my work, then there are links in the video description for you to follow.

We know that God is good. And we know that that’s true all of the time, even in circumstances that we can’t understand. But we also know that precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints. But if God is good and if the lives of his saints is so precious, then why does he allow them to die, to be martyred at all? Why wouldn’t he just protect them?

Well, in John 12:24, Jesus himself says, “Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it produces much grain.” Charlie Kirk can never be replaced. His loss will leave a hole in the hearts and the lives of his family and his loved ones forever. And nothing I say in this video should be interpreted as diminishing that loss in any way, shape, or form. But because of that loss, Charlie Kirk falling to the ground and dying, there are right now tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of fathers who are hugging their wives and their children tighter. Young men who are putting on suits and going to church for the first time. Young women who are holding themselves and any prospective partners and husbands they have to a higher standard. Christians vowing to be bolder, lost souls opening their Bibles with true hunger for perhaps the first time ever all over the world. This is happening.

To understand just why young men today have become so completely lost and why they need someone like a Charlie Kirk so much, we need to take a moment to understand just how dark our culture has become. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Now, hold that thought for a moment because in Proverbs 8:36, wisdom is speaking through King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. And wisdom says, “Those who hate me, wisdom, love death.”

So, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and those who hate wisdom love death, then we can contract that and say that those who lack the fear of the Lord love death. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen in our culture over the last few hundred years. It is no coincidence that the more our culture has rejected God, the more we have embraced death. To the point that I believe it’s accurate to say that enlightened Western culture is now a death cult.

Because we view death not as a tragic but inevitable consequence of the fallen nature of our world, but as a solution to our problems. Unwanted pregnancy, afraid that having that baby might hurt your studies or your career or be embarrassing. Well, that’s okay. We can fix that. We just need to use a little bit of death. In ancient pagan cultures, they sacrificed babies to idols in the hope of rain or a better harvest. Today, we sacrifice babies at abortion clinics in the hope of degrees and a better pay packet. Different times, same crimes.

But our death cult today goes far beyond just abortion alone. Euthanasia is celebrated, lobbied for, championed as compassionate. Are you old, in pain, or sad? Well, that’s okay. We’ll fix it with some death. It’s the compassionate thing to do after all. In Proverbs 12:10, we learned that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. And when you see what our culture calls mercy killing babies, killing the elderly, the sick, the lonely we see that our culture has become cruel. This is their idea of tender mercy.

The modern death cult extends to the transgender movement as well. Now, having a sex change doesn’t kill the person who has it, but it ends their bloodline. If you’re transgender, you can be pretty sure your parents weren’t, or at least they weren’t postoperative at the time you were conceived. And again, look at what we call mercy today. When someone has the awful experience of, for example, feeling like they should be a woman when they were born as a man, we give them cross hormone therapy to make them feel more like a woman more like what their biology isn’t?

Surely that’s backwards. Shouldn’t we give them same sex hormones? In this case, in this example, give them testosterone to help them to feel more like what they are biologically, in this case, male. Now, I have genuine compassion for people with gender dysphoria. I cannot imagine having to live with that kind of confusion and conflict inside of yourself, and I want to help those people.

But if someone’s feelings don’t match their biology, wouldn’t it make sense, if we’re going to give them hormones at all to fix the problem, wouldn’t it make sense to give them hormones that would help them to feel more like what their biology is, rather than giving them hormones that will make them feel even less like what their biology is even less like they should be in the body that they’re in to increase the intensity of the conflict that they are having within themselves. Is that compassion? That’s cruel. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

The world feels upside down. Logic has been turned on its head. Good is called evil and evil is called good.

And once again, the prophet Isaiah summed it up perfectly this time in chapter 5:20 to 23. Woe unto them who call evil good and good evil, and put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight. Woe unto them who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink, which justify the wicked for a reward that’s speaking of bribery to pervert justice and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.

Now, doesn’t that once again speak of our culture today? Wise in our own eyes, indulgent in this example, indulgent drinking strong drink but we’re indulgent in all sorts of ways. Lifting up the wicked and destroying the righteous. We are today no better than ancient pagan death cults. Sure, we have this veneer of technology, of society, of civilization. We identify as being superior to the people of old, but we’re not.

But the same God who was faithful to them then is still faithful to us now. Solomon writing in the book of Proverbs, the wisest man who ever lived and the author of those verses we read earlier about wisdom was visited by God directly. It’s recorded in 2 Chronicles 7 starting at verse 13. God says, “When I shut up heaven and there is no rain or command the locusts to devour the land or send pestilence among my people. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Notice how that starts with God himself saying, “When I, God, shut up heaven and there’s no rain or command the locust to devour the land or send pestilence among my people.” That’s God talking about what he is doing. Why would God do that? I thought you said God was good, but here he is talking about God himself causing hardship and suffering to his people. Yeah, that’s what he’s talking about. But so often we confuse hard for bad and we confuse easy for good. And that’s just not how life is.

See, Jesus said in Matthew 7, starting at verse 7, “Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you, and everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” Notice good things, good gifts. God doesn’t give bad gifts. He only gives good ones. But God has an eternal view, not a temporal one.

Imagine you were praying that you could win the lottery. And God said, “Okay, but if I give you that lottery win, your life will become easy, abundant.” And you’re like, “Yeah, that’ll be good. That’s the point.” God says, “Hold on. Then you won’t need me anymore and you won’t come and pray and you won’t read my word and you’ll forget about me and you’ll become proud, indulgent, wicked. And then when you die suddenly in your sleep at some point later in life, you will end up spending eternity in hell. Now, if that was the deal, you can win the lottery but you’ll end up spending eternity in hell. Do you think that that lottery win is a good gift? Is it the kind of prayer that God is going to answer?” Well, of course not. But see, from our temporary perspective here on earth, we’re saying, “God, why aren’t you listening to my prayer? I really need that money.”

But God is good. God is love. God is gracious and patient and loving and kind and merciful.

And he gives good gifts, not necessarily easy ones, because the eternal perspective is the only one that matters. Likewise, what if it is precisely the hardship and the struggle that you’re experiencing here on earth that is causing you to go to God, to press in, to want more, to seek his face? What if in your struggle and your brokenness, God is calling you to lay up treasure in heaven that you can’t see yet, but God can? And you’re saying, “God, why are you allowing this suffering?” And God is saying, “You’ll see. Be patient. Be faithful. Run your race because when you get home, when you get to heaven, you’ll see.”

Let’s go back to what God said to Solomon. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain or command the locust to devour the land or send pestilence among my people, then straight afterwards, the very next verse, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.”

Why does God allow bad things to happen? Because those things are the catalyst that bring us running to him. He allows things like this to happen so that we repent of our wicked ways, humble ourselves in prayer before God and seek his face. Because unfortunately, too often when things are good, we get comfortable. We stop seeking him. We don’t humble ourselves. And so, God in his goodness, his mercy, his grace creates a situation that causes us to come running to him. A situation where we’ve lost something temporary in this life, some comfort, some fortune, or some person that we loved. And he does that not to be cruel or to punish. He does that for the purpose of calling us back to an eternal perspective and to an eternal reward with him.

It’s been said by martyrs in the past, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And God is the one who has that perspective better than anyone. Charlie Kirk was martyred, and he has now a martyr’s reward in heaven. Likewise, Jesus promises great reward for those who give up father and mother or loved ones for his kingdom. The Kirk family who God called to sacrifice so much in this life will receive their reward for it in the next. And I don’t say that to diminish the pain of what they’re going through. Please don’t hear what I’m not saying. The loss would be unimaginable.

But it is precisely because of this unimaginable loss, the injustice of it, seeing a young man cut down cruelly, suddenly, violently before he’s even reached his prime with young children. It’s that injustice that is precisely why his death sent a shock wave around the world. It is precisely the injustice of the death of Charlie Kirk that is the reason why today there’s tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe a million or more young men and young women and old as well around the world putting on a suit, going to church, opening their Bibles, humbling themselves in prayer before God and seeking his face. It is precisely this repentance, this prayer, this humbling, this reaction to the injustice of what was done to Charlie Kirk that God will hear from heaven. And he promises that he will forgive our great and many sins and heal our broken land.

Proverbs 29:2 says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked bear rule, the people mourn.”

Wickedness has been ruling in western cultures for decades now because we rejected the fear of the Lord. Remember those verses from earlier? We hated wisdom, rejected the fear of the Lord. And as a result, we fell in love with death. And now, surprise, surprise, we are surrounded by wickedness and injustice and a culture. We’ve become a culture that calls good evil and evil good. Our tender mercies are cruel, and we are suffering because of it.

God, in his goodness and in his mercy, has taken Charlie Kirk home in the most outrageous and wicked way imaginable, precisely because God’s mercy is calling us. Indeed, in a way, he’s causing us to humble ourselves, to pray, to seek his face. And that is precisely what we need to do. If you’re wondering, what do we do now in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death? It is this. And this is precisely how God will take this grain of wheat that has fallen to the ground and died and turned that grain of wheat into a great harvest.

God is good always and without exception. And I believe that when we get to heaven, we’ll see it and we’ll understand. And all those questions that we think we have when I get to heaven, I’m going to ask God, “Why did he allow this to happen?” I think you’re going to arrive in heaven and suddenly it’s just going to make sense. And we will realize that the sacrifice that has been required by God from Charlie and from his family was actually a gift from God for the rest of us. And I can’t wait to see Charlie and his wife and his children in heaven someday and to say to them all, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

And to say to Charlie, “Thank you for pointing us back to wisdom in life. Thank you for reminding us of the fear of the Lord in death. Thank you for being that grain of wheat. Thank you for being the reason why millions of people humbled themselves and prayed and sought God’s face. Thank you, Charlie, for being the catalyst that we needed, the shock, the wake-up call, so that God heard our prayers, forgave our sin, and healed our land.”