There’s no question there are many questions about the events that unfolded in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
What was the shooter’s motive to kill the former President? How did the Secret Service allow him to get a rifle onto a roof with a straight shot to the President?
There’s more. Supposedly Crooks’ parents called authorities hours before, concerned about their son. Then, almost an hour in advance of the shooting, local law enforcement snapped a photo of him with a backpack and a rangefinder. They radioed their concerns, but the man vanished, and nothing was done.
They spotted him again at 5:40 pm, about 20 minutes before the shooting. Then, shortly after Trump took the stage, people are seen on video shouting to police, pointing to the gunman on the roof. Questions? I’ll say there are!
We’ll have to leave these to the FBI and Congress who are looking into the matter. But other questions—even more vital because they transcend time—we need to ask. They’re the ultimate bullet points.
1. Was that bullet a wake-up call to the whole nation? Should we all rethink how we talk to one another? For a split second, did it touch our common humanity? And should it remind us how fragile life is?
When Donald Trump awakened that morning, he couldn’t know that the Grim Reaper would soon brush by him. As David wrote, “There is but a step between me and death.” (1 Samuel 20:3) For Trump, it was just the thickness of his ear.
Every day we come within a hair’s breadth of death. One of us reading this will be the next one of us to go—and nobody knows who it will be. That’s why the Bible says, “Prepare to meet your God.” (Amos 4:12)
2. If it was you facing sudden death, do you have peace? People say, “It’s time to make your peace with God.” That isn’t biblical. The Bible’s message is much more assuring. Christ already “made peace through the blood of His cross.” (Colossians 1:20)
Like Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old former fire chief who died shielding his family, Christ stepped into the path of our oncoming judgment and took the blow for us. “Christ died for our sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:3) Now risen from death, He asks us to trust Him with our souls.
3. Was the sparing of Trump’s life a “miracle by a millimeter”? If it was, where was Comperatore’s miracle? These aren’t easy questions, but some things we do know. A miracle doesn’t happen every time, or it wouldn’t be a miracle! Donald Trump acknowledged his life was spared “by the grace of almighty God.”
And Corey Comperatore? You didn’t hear much of it in the news, but he was a devoted follower of the Lord Jesus. So his first miracle happened when God saved him, and the other occurred when he was swept into heaven to a hero’s welcome.“Corey’s love for Jesus was clear in the way he lived his life,” said his pastor, Jonathan Fehl. “He served his family, his church, his community…and he did all that with a heart of service to the Lord.”
It’s possible to honor God “by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20) We pray Donald Trump will do the former as Corey Comperatore did the latter.
Article by Jabe Nicholson first published in the Commercial Dispatch, July 28, 2024