Charlie Kirk Memorial
City Stadium Memorial Service
September 28, 2025
Lynchburg, Virginia
Good evening, my name is Virgil Hurt, Senior Pastor of Providence Church here in Lynchburg. It is my privilege and a great honor to be here tonight to honor Charlie Kirk. It seems that America is at a pivotal moment. It is not the first pivotal moment in her history and will not be the last, but in my lifetime, it is one of the most important.
On 9/11/2001, the Trade Towers were attacked and came tumbling down. The aftermath of that horrific event brought the United States together in collective mourning. There was a brief time of peace among contending worldviews and a short-lived unity of purpose.
On 9/10/2025 Charlie Kirk was murdered. After his death, there has also been a collective mourning. It is deep and has unified conservatives in a way that hasn’t been felt for some time. It has also revealed the antithesis of competing ideas, the clash of worldviews that vie for the heart and soul of our country.
In 2001, the brief unity in America seemed to be centered on Americanism, national pride, our nation against anyone else who would attack us.
This pivotal moment is different. The center of this grief is around one man and his ideas for our country. Those ideas certainly include issues associated with the most conservative side of the Republican party. In that regard, the attack on Charlie was an attack on the political ideas that are the most conservative and the best for our country. But the deeper and more important aspect of Charlie’s murder and the pivotal moment we are in is what makes Charlie a Christian martyr.
A martyr is a witness. Being a witness is fundamental to what it means to be a Christian. And the early witnesses for the faith of Jesus Christ sometimes paid with their lives. Stephen was the first Christian martyr and many have followed him. Just as Stephen’s murder was the cause of the spread of the gospel, Charlie’s murder has been the cause of a mighty spread of the gospel. We firmly stand against the evil violence that took Charlie from us. It is the duty of the civil magistrate to bear the sword against that evil.
At the same time, we are full of gratitude that our God takes the evilest acts and works them to good for His purposes, for the advance of His Church in the world. We have all had a front seat to God working evil for good in the last couple of weeks.
We pray that God would make this pivotal moment deep and lasting because the issue is not simply love of country. It is that but it is so much more. Charlie realized that our country could not be saved unless her citizens were saved. And I mean that quite literally. You must have a personal turning point in order to have an America turning point.
The essence of repentance is turning. You turn from sin to righteousness. You turn from serving lies to serving the truth. You turn from this ugly death culture of abortion, euthanasia, and trans madness to the beauty of having babies, caring for the aged and embracing the God given sex and roles that God has established in the world. You turn from your own self-appointed truths to real truth. You turn from drunkenness and porn use and fornication to serve the living God and you learn to live in obedience to His revealed will, revealed in the Bible, the only infallible and ultimate authority in the world.
Many thousands have done so in the last couple of weeks and I pray for a great harvest of souls in the weeks and months ahead.
Time will tell how big this turning point is. I am hopeful that it will be deep and lasting because it has reached into the real crisis of America, a crisis of faith in Jesus Christ. When America turns its back on God and God lets her wander away into the darkness, the result is the madness that we have witnessed in the last decade. Killing babies masquerades as health care. Castrated men pretend to be women. Dutched up girls pretend to be boys. Liars in apostate churches pretend to be Christians. Namely, you reap what you sow. We sowed unbelief in the light and life of Jesus Christ, and we have reaped the harvest of death and darkness. The only way back is through repentance and belief.
So, what do we do now in this turning point? Turn to Jesus Christ. He is the light and life. Only then will you truly live. Only then will you be able to see. He is the one that makes all the rest of it make sense.
You have heard it said that the only necessary thing for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing. And that is true. It takes courage to stand up for what is right, especially in the midst of strong opposition. For too long in our country, Christians have been shamed into silence. This has happened on issues of creation, God making all things in the space of six ordinary days and calling it good. The god science told us to shut up, and we obeyed. The god political correctness commanded us to keep silent when feminism crept into the church. We obeyed and were shocked a generation later at homosexual pulpits. The god ‘free education’ commanded us to send our kids to government schools to learn all the lessons of modern liberalism, and we did it. This evil prospered because good men were silent.
But it only takes one man to speak up to change the course of history. Athanasius contra mundum. He stood against the world and saved the church. Martin Luther said, “Here I stand, I can do no other” and sparked the Reformation. Patrick Henry said “Give me liberty or give me death” and launched the fight for American freedom. Charlie Kirk, said “Yes, Lord, I will do Your will,” and started a movement that was began in conservative American politics and transformed into a Christian revival.
Each of these men lighted a fire that could not be extinguished. Their stand woke up sleeping men that created an army that could not be defeated. I pray that Charlie’s life work and martyr death has done just that by calling a multitude to Christ and to His Church.
So what do we do now? Faced with the brutality of Communism and its double speak of lies, Alexander Solzhenitsyn decided to Live Not By Lies. We are called to tell the truth. In every circumstance tell the truth. Don’t just believe it. You can do that and keep silent and evil will continue to prosper. Tell it. Speak. And speak the truth in love.
One reason that I have a great hope for this current pivotal moment is the fruit that it has already born. Charlie’s witness has caused many to boldly speak the truth. Who would have ever imagined our Vice President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of War, all showing up at a funeral to boldly speak to countless millions throughout our nation and around the world and clearly proclaim the gospel and declare Jesus as King? A year ago, the darkness powers controlling our country would not have allowed it to be so. But the light has dawned, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Join that boldness. Speak the fundamentals truths. God created all things of nothing. Man fell into sin and brought death into the world. God provided a redeemer, Jesus Christ, born of a virgin to become the God-man who lived a perfect sinless life. He died on the cross as a substitution to save every sinner who puts their trust in Him. He rose from the dead on the third day. He ascended to the right hand of God, the Father and rules heaven and earth as the rightful King over all creation. He sent His Holy Spirit to empower His church to proclaim these truths, to be witnesses so that His kingdom grows and fills the earth and rules over the nations, discipling them and baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
These are the fundamental truths that change everything and that change you. Believe and proclaim them. Follow Jesus. Read your Bible. Go to a Bible believing and preaching church. Get married. Raise kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Take dominion for Jesus in every area of your life: your work, politics, entertainment, media, art. It all belongs to Jesus so stake the flag of Jesus Christ everywhere you go.
Do this and you will be true to Charlie’s legacy and God will bless America. Amen.