The World and Everything in It: September 12, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning . Flags are at half staff today following a shocking assassination. Today on Culture Friday we'll talk about whether America is nearing a breaking point where violence, politics, and culture collide.

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet is standing by.

Later, a conversation on how parents can help students process grief with Biblical hope.

DEYOUNG: That's part of being adults and helping people younger than us have some stability in a moment that feels very destabilizing,

And we’ll close a difficult week with words and music of encouragement.

BROWN: It’s Friday, September 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BROWN: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: 

Charlie Kirk latest » Authorities last night said a manhunt was still underway for a new person of interest in the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Law enforcement on Wednesday said they had detained a person of interest, but that individual was cleared and released.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Bohls:

BOHLS:  If any attack on the First Amendment is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy, that is why we will, we will relentlessly pursue this case and the shooter until we find him.

Bohls added that agents believe they have recovered the murder weapon, a high-powered rifle

Authorities released photos on Thursday of a man they are highly motivated to find.

The 31-year-old Kirk was an influential conservative voice with young voters. His campus events drew crowds of thousands including at Utah Valley University where Kirk was shot on Wednesday.

Routh trial » Meantime, the trial is underway for a man who allegedly plotted to assassinate Donald Trump while he played golf in South Florida last year. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more:

BENJAMIN EICHER: 59-year-old Ryan Routh is representing himself in the trial. And his defense was not off to a great start on Thursday.

He veered off topic in his opening statement, discussing Hitler and wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

The judge warned him to stay on topic and twice asked jurors to leave the courtroom.

Routh has pleaded not-guilty to charges including attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate nearly a year ago.

Prosecutors told the court Routh's plot against Trump was “carefully crafted and deadly serious.”

Officials say a Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view, thwarting the attempt on Trump’s life.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

9/11 ceremonies » Thousands of Americans gathered yesterday at several locations …

SOUND: [Taps]

… to mark the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

At the Pentagon, President Trump honored Defense Department employees killed in 2001.

TRUMP:  We will defend the nation they serve, the values they upheld, and the freedom for which they died. We will support our troops. We will protect our families, and we will preserve the American way of life for every future generation.

But this year, he was forced to break with tradition.

Normally, the ceremony is observed near the building’s memorial outside its walls. But officials decided to move to the Pentagon’s interior courtyard for security reasons amid heightened political tensions after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

In New York City, residents and officials also remembered those lost on 9/11.

SOUND: [NYC bagpipes]

The ceremony began with a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner … followed by the marching of the FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums.

SOUND: [NYC bagpipes]

And a similar ceremony took place in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Israel latest » Israel continues to face fallout for its attack against Hamas officials in Qatar.

The Israeli military this week carried out airstrikes in the capital city of Doha.

President Trump was asked by reporters how this would affect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, given that until now Qatar has been a go-between.

TRUMP: Well, hopefully it won't affect it at all. We want the hostages out and we want them out soon. Hopefully it won't affect it.

But Qatar's prime minister yesterday said with the strike, Israel likely killed any hope for the release of the hostages still held in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any country that harbors terrorists should not expect Israel to stand idly by.

Meanwhile in France:

SOUND: [Resolution passes]

Members of the European Parliament cheer as a resolution passed to condemn Israel's military offensive in Gaza. That resolution is not legally binding but it does urge the EU to take action to stop the strikes.

It also calls on member states to recognize a Palestinian state.

Colorado investigation » Colorado officials say two high school students remain hospitalized in critical condition after a gunman, reportedly a fellow student, opened fire at their school on Wednesday.

Jackie Kelley with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office:

KELLEY: The suspect had a handgun. He had to keep reloading. This went on and on, and as he did that, he tried to find new targets.

The shooting occurred at Evergreen High School, just west of Denver.

The gunman was identified as 16-year-old Desmond Holly who took his own life after the attack.

KELLEY: Based on some of the information that we're seeing about this suspect, he is radicalized by some extremist network. We want to at least give you that much about maybe mindset for him.

Kelley said the shooter’s parents are fully cooperating with investigators.

Jobs, inflation numbers » New inflation numbers show a mixed picture. Consumer prices rose four-tenths of a percent in August — the fourth straight monthly increase. But core inflation, which strips out volatile sectors like food and energy … came in a little lower at three-tenths.

That follows Wednesday’s surprise report showing wholesale prices actually dipped slightly last month.

The jobs market also looks weaker than first thought, with revised data showing the first monthly job losses since 2020.

Still, Wall Street was in a good mood betting the Federal Reserve will cut rates by a quarter point when it meets Wednesday.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, help for the hurting, a conversation with Kevin DeYoung.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, September 12th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Culture Friday! Joining us is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Good Morning John.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: John, the story about Charlie Kirk was breaking so fast. And one of the things I was really struck by, I do think that he has been flattened in some of the reporting as just a very provocative political activist.

But the thing I noticed as the story was being reported, several of the sources who came on—as he was clinging to life, as they were treating him, trying to save his life—more than a handful of people I heard saying, “I know Charlie, and we want to pray for his life to be spared, but I know Charlie knew Christ, and if he doesn’t make it, he will step into the presence of the Lord.”

So I was really encouraged by that, even as I was horrified by hearing the story.

STONESTREET: Yeah, and that’s what evil is. It’s horrible. And when we politicize it, or put some other lens on it outside of the reality described in Holy Scripture of the kind of world we live in and the kind of creatures humans are—literal image bearers, those who are God-like, to quote C.S. Lewis, and by the way Scripture—and when that loss happens, and when the image is so defaced, there’s no other word for it than horrible.

And it’s still horrible, even though we can have trust in Christ that he has Charlie Kirk in His presence. And that’s what’s so hard right now, to get around the hate and the vitriol that has been lobbed at him, even in the midst of his death, where you have news networks like MSNBC blaming it on Charlie himself, you have Governor Pritzker blaming it on January 6 rioters and politicizing it almost immediately, and it feels so horrible.

And there are some of these events that just seem to kind of gut punch you, and this is one for many of us. I didn’t know Charlie, so it’s not because of that. There’s just some of these moments where the horror just stands out.

And it’s horrible on many sides. It’s horrible that an image bearer’s life is taken. It’s horrible that a young woman is now a widow way too early, raising children by herself. It’s horrible that these beautiful little kids are without a dad. It’s horrible that someone could actually do something as bad as this. And it’s horrible that people can immediately jump and celebrate the horror.

All of that’s horrible. And to kind of have this view that the world’s better because this horror happened, as many have expressed, is just such an example of being so absolutely confused.

But make no mistake, now that we’ve had two tragic murders, there’s so much about this week and the horror of it that points to the fact that we are in such an incredibly volatile cultural moment. If I needed any evidence that we were in a civilizational moment, as Os Guinness has said, this week seems to just, seems like we’re on the precipice. We’re so precarious. If we can’t all agree that that’s horrible, what the heck are we doing? And that, to me, is what has stood out about this.

BROWN: Yep. You mentioned, John, the heartbreak of this week. And you know, I’ve been sitting here thinking about the brutal slaying of Iryna Zarutska. She’s the Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And you know, I cannot stop seeing her face on that video of her attack. And as the mom of young adult children myself, and as someone who has used public transportation when I was single—and there were times when I struggled to know what to do. Do I make eye contact? Do I look away? And I’m going to tell you I was afraid.

So how do we respond, John, as Christians? I mean, is fear the appropriate response?

STONESTREET: I think that’s a really hard question. In both cases, we know at least that there is a cultural mood that groups entire people together and wants to eliminate them, both with our political theories, also with the way we think about race, and the way we do it without grounding it at all in a common humanity.

It’s shown in the video that you mentioned, not just in the horrific, terrible act of what happened to this beautiful young woman, but in the indifference of those who were spectators—the indifference of those who either weren’t aware that it was happening because they were trapped on their screens, or who were taking the posture that a whole lot of people have taken in the face of evil, which is to ignore it and to walk away and to not get involved.

And all of that comes from this mentality that basically groups people up like this.

And I think often of something that Os Guinness has said: are we going to have a human-friendly future? And I’ve kind of thought about it in terms of AI. I thought about it in terms of technocratic, you know, our integration with machines. But I think it’s even more fundamental than that.

In other words, are we going to have a future in which we actually see people for being made in the image of God?

Now, your question was a little different. Your question was, how do I think about my own safety? And that’s a different answer for me than it is for you as a woman. It’s a different answer for my daughters than it is for a grown man.

We might all be in a situation where we have good reason to fear, but that points to the reality that human beings are male and female, that there’s something about us.

So I think one of the answers to your question is these may be signposts this week of a time where, in more situations than 10 years ago or 15 years ago or 20 years ago, we should be aware and maybe even rightly afraid.

But I also think that one of the answers to your question is that Christians, of all people, have to begin with a clear understanding of what it means to be human, and then allow that truth to guide how we interact. So that it would never be true of us, that we would be trapped on our screens and not even aware of a vulnerable situation.

That we may, to the best of our ability, see a young woman like her sit down and then just be aware and go and grab her and move her to a different seat out of kindness. You see what I mean?

Listen, I’m not saying that anybody could have prevented this. I’m just saying that we do not have a human-friendly culture right now. And when you do not have a human-friendly culture, there’s no preventative measures. There’s not the same barriers and obstacles to these great horrors that there are in other times and in other places. And I think that has something to do with the kind of world we want to build.

EICHER: I want to jump back to what happened to Charlie and what it means, the bigger picture. Culturally, are we on the brink of serious political violence in this culture? What do you think?

STONESTREET: You immediately reminded me of a scene in the movie A Few Good Men, when Tom Cruise asked Jack Nicholson about a particular Marine being in danger. And he said yes. And he said, do you mean grave danger? To which Jack Nicholson replied, is there another kind?

And it’s a funny line in the movie, but it’s not a funny line here. When you ask if we’ve now reached a violent political moment—yes. There’s evidence of this that goes back years. The question is, is this becoming more mainstream? Is this becoming more of a threat across the board?

I’m just, you know, in this kind of civilizational mode right now because of the privilege of working on the Truth Risingfilm with Os and thinking about this. But one of the big observations here is we tend to think of civilizations as things in the past. And we tend to think about what happened to them as if that’s what happened in the past without applying the real lessons to the moment.

Civilizations cannot hold without solid ground. Civilizations cannot hold without common definitions of life and value and truth.

I guess my question has less to do with are we on the verge of political violence and to say we’re there. Or do we mean by that something resembling civil war? I mean, I hope not. That sounds crazy, right?

But at what point do we start to realize that we see things so differently in this nation, and we don’t have any other common language or common ground? We look at the act of abortion, and one side calls it women’s reproductive health care, the other side calls it the taking of innocent life. How can we talk about the same thing, and one side call it health care, and the other side call it murder?

The trans surgeries: one side calls it gender affirming, the other side calls it mutilation. And we’re not talking about two different things. We’re talking about the same thing and calling it two completely different things.

Yeah, and that’s the level of divide. And all political violence starts with an ideological divide. That’s why it’s so crazy when you have explanations of, oh, it’s the gun’s fault. No. People are believers.

To be made in the image of God is to be a believer in something. We’re incurably religious. We give our religious allegiances to something. And when those things get divided at such a fundamental level, it’s just hard to bridge that gap and hold things together.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thank you, John.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, September 12th.  Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: how to process violence and grief, and how parents can help young people who lost an important voice in their lives. This week's assassination shocked the country. Charlie Kirk worked with and influenced many, many thousands of young people, and let's not hide from the fact that he was horrifyingly cut down right in front of them, whether they were on campus that day or not, because the video is out there. Our colleague Lindsay Mast joins us now, morning Lindsay, what a week!

LINDSAY MAST: For sure. It’s been a jarring, heavy week for so many families. I’ve got two college-age daughters myself, and I know friends whose kids looked up to Charlie Kirk. His death has left them shaken and searching for how to respond.

In fact, one parent put words to what many others are feeling. She asked: Who do I grieve with, and what am I grieving? My perception of a safe Christian society has been eroding for a while, but Wednesday’s events accelerated it. Do I grieve in front of my kids? And if I do, are they scared when they see me afraid?

So I got in touch with pastor and author Kevin DeYoung, who was kind to give us some time. And I began by asking him how he’d respond to that group of really good questions.

KEVIN DEYOUNG: And I appreciate that thought, because it gets to the complexity, not only of the situation, we understand that, but our own emotional responses and spiritual responses are not just on one layer and level. So we're trying to minister to students in a church or in a youth group or to our own kids, and we have our own sense of grief, and it is a fine line. I don't think we help our students or our kids if we completely turn ourselves inside out and show every last bit of anxiety and fear and trepidation we may have. I don't think that's being fake. That's part of being adults and helping people younger than us have some stability in a moment that feels very destabilizing, and yet absolutely we should be able to express and can be very healing to express to our our kids, “I don't quite know what to make of this either, and there are things about this that are really upsetting to me.” Obviously, the loss of life and the loss of a Christian leader and a husband and a father, but all of those bigger things, and I think to even to name them and put the category out there is appropriate. And it does register something. My mom, my dad, my pastor, my leader, is willing and is a safe person that I can talk to and I can grieve with and be okay if that's not now and it's just a short conversation, and be willing to have the longer conversation if the door, if the Lord opens that door.

MAST: I know young people in this generation suffer already from high rates of depression, anxiety, maybe a general ennui, many seem to have latched on to Charlie Kirk's messages about faith in Jesus, but also civic engagement and life purpose. It seems like the reaction could likely go one of two ways, either shutting down completely or being lit up to carry on Kirk's messages and, more importantly, the message of the gospel. So how do we encourage hope in dealing with this?

DEYOUNG: I mean, very, very practically, this may be one of those good times to encourage people, talk to your friends, talk to your parents. We want to, we want to be talking about this. And you're absolutely right to try to point people toward hope. And what's really helpful is here, I mean, some of the very last things over the last days and weeks that that Charlie Kirk said in some of the tweets were about Jesus died so that we can live, and that his message was, among other things, don't wallow in anger and don't resort to violence, but find joy and purpose. And yet here, even as I'm saying that here's the danger is that we can say that message, which is all true and gospel and hope, and we need to give that, but we also need to understand, if we do that in a, in a in a ham fisted way, it feels like a stiff arm to people's emotions, like, don't be sad, don't be upset, don't be scared, don't be angry. I mean, there's nothing worse, really, for a parent than to see your own kids sad. And so we start parenting out of our own desire not to be sad over our kids sadness, and so we start directing them away from what really could be healthy, normal emotions that they they just need to work through and understand that the Bible has lots of resources for the whole range of human emotions.

MAST: A couple of things, you talked about being destabilized. There were two things that I sort of noticed over the time since this happened. One is the very disturbing sense of celebration by certain people over, over what happened on Wednesday, and I think that can be very confusing for young people, for people of any age, but since we're talking young people, how do we help young people cope with the idea that there is a sense of celebration here among people who they may be going to class with, walking around the halls with, certainly online with.

DEYOUNG: I think we need a lot of help as Christians in having a theology of enemies. And I think we need more than one thing. We know that Jesus says to love our enemies, and that's really paramount, and pray for our enemies. But we're at a time, sadly in our country's history, there are real, tragically, some violent enemies to the truths of the Bible in the hope of the gospel. But Jesus talked a lot about this in his upper room discourse before he he knows he's going to die. One of the things he talks at length with his disciples is the world is going to hate you. Now we can own that in a way that feels almost proud and pat ourselves on the back, and we go out with a smugness, but it's there for a reason, because Jesus knew they hated Jesus. Now the answer there or the next step is not to say, well, good, the world hates me. And I guess I'm going to hate them back, because the Bible says we don't revile those who revile us in return. I think it is a moment to help young people and really ourselves remember that what we've had for a long time in this country is historically not the case for a lot of Christians around the world. That is a relatively friendly, peaceable cultural climate, and to see that there are those that genuinely viscerally hate Biblical truth, hate what Jesus stood for, hate the message of the cross and of Christ is something our kids need to understand, not to be fearful, but to be prepared. “Do not be surprised,” Peter says, “when the fiery trial comes” and to be for warned is to be forearmed. I mean, that that's part of it that doesn't solve it, but that's part of it to help our people and help our our kids understand. Because the next thing Jesus says after that teaching is and because of this, some people have fall fallen away. This is a reason that some people leave the Christian faith. We don't like to be hated. We don't, we don't, we don't want to be afraid. We don't like the what it does to us, emotionally, psychologically. And yet, Jesus teaches a lot about this, and we worship a crucified savior who was hated, and therefore his followers can expect some of the same.

MAST: You know, I think talking about this for most of us alive in America today, being bold for our faith until now, maybe losing a friend, maybe a job, even a career. Some people are calling Kirk a Christian martyr. I feel like you may be going there in your own line of thinking, and we're not. We don't know yet, of course, what motivated the shooter, if it was his politics or his faith or both. But how do we convince our kids that the cause of Christ is worth the ultimate price now that those possibilities seem much more tangible, I think, than they did three days ago.

DEYOUNG: Yeah, and I think it's important, as we we talk to our kids in this moment to realize we we don't have to say everything that can be said in this one moment. In fact, if we try to, we'll be saying too much. And we see that from Jesus too. There were things he flat out told his disciples. You're not ready to hear this yet. Now, we may not say it quite that bluntly to our kids, but if we try to give them a full, you know, theology of martyrdom to a 15 year old, I don't think that's what what they need. They need to know that Jesus is worth it. Is worth it for me. And Charlie Kirk believed in Christ and His resurrection, and we know the end of the story, and we know who wins at the end of the story. 

And you know we're right at the anniversary of 9/11 this week. And I think there's a point that maybe some parents can talk about their own experience. Say, you know, this was a, this was a moment in my life that we'll never forget, and some things really changed. And I just want you to also hear some things continued by God's grace. You know what? People went to school, they went to college, they graduated. It wasn't, it didn't mean the end of the world. We never want to normalize evil, but we are trying to normalize that God has been with his people and has been with us personally through difficulties, national tragedies, and that same God is going to be with you, and I think in this moment, often that's you know, whether our kids are going to respond to it right there. They need to know and hear from us a faith that we have, that God has not left the throne, that this did not take him by surprise, and that the end of the story has not yet been written for us, but it has been for God, and it's ultimately a good story, right?

MAST: I want to go back to one of the other things I found to be, I think, somewhat destabilizing, was there was graphic video of this murder online within minutes of it happening. It seems like we weren't meant to bear images like that in our minds, and yet, thousands, I don't know, maybe millions of people, and many of them, quite young, have seen something that they can't unsee. So how do we shake that image? Should we shake it? How do we how do we deal with that visual part of it?

DEYOUNG: You're right that we weren't. I mean, there's a famous letter from CS Lewis, and I'll just paraphrase, but he he was basically saying we were not meant to bear the evils that are perpetrated everywhere in the world. We have enough of them in our own local context. Of course, with the internet, this is not a new phenomenon. It's been happening for the last generation. We just we are bombarded with images. We're bombarded with pictures of evil and suffering 7 billion people. I mean, we can just get it every single day. So first of all, I want to say no. I mean, no one should feel like they're not doing their duty or they're chickening out not to watch the video. I mean, I'm in Charlotte and we had the stabbing was the news a couple of days ago, and who would have thought that would only be the second most horrible thing to be talking about? But I don't. I try to stay away from seeing those because they are so hard to unsee. 

And I think to help our kids, then, whether they've seen them or not, to say, Okay, what? What is, how do we think about not being ignorant of evil in the world? And yet, the image, an image strikes us in a palpable, powerful way. And so first of all, I hope they can avoid it. Most of them probably won't, in which case you know what, to detox as much as you can from this online ecosystem. And the only way you can't flush things out, which you can do is you can put better things in there, and whatever is lovely, whatever is good, whatever is beautiful, and a walk outside may be one of the very best things that you can do for yourself, spiritually, mentally and emotionally and these sorts of things.

MAST: Kevin, we don't often ask our guests to pray on the program, but would you end our time together, interceding for our nation and asking for God's comfort for the hurting today?

DEYOUNG: I’d be happy to. Our gracious heavenly Father. We're so glad that what Jesus taught us to pray, the first thing he reminded us is that we pray to a father, to a father who loves his children, to a father who sent His Son to die for us that we might live, a father who sent the Holy Spirit to comfort the grieving, to help the downcast, to equip us for a life of faithfulness. And so we pray to you not as a distant deity, not simply as a judge or even a king on the throne, but as our father and we pray that you would minister through the Lord Jesus as a sympathetic high priest to draw near to those who are grieving. And so we close our time here, Lord, believing that you love to hear your people pray and that you can do more than we know how to even ask or imagine for the good of your people in this world, for the good of this country, with all of our flaws, all of our sins. Forgive us, Lord, and ultimately, for the glory of your name, we pray. Amen.

MAST: Amen. Kevin DeYoung is senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Kevin, thank you so much for your time.

DEYOUNG: Well, thanks for what you're doing, and an honor to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, September 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

This has certainly been a hard week for the United States of America. But as we close today, we do not close in despair!

EICHER: We do not. We close in hope, and for that we combed through the archives and found some of the prayers listeners have sent us for our country and spiritual revival in it. Even though these came a year ago, they are more than timely today.

BROWN: We’ve selected a few of those and set them within a hopeful rendition of the 18th century hymn: How firm a foundation, recorded by the worship team at Providence Church, Austin, TX.

SOFIA ELLIOT: Father, I grieve at the wickedness and the turning our back on you in so many ways. Lord, there are so many people who hate you. So many people have turned away from your word and your truth. Please, would you cause a revival in our country. I love you, Father and ask these things in the name of Your Son. Amen.

MUSIC: How firm a foundation, O saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he has said
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?

BRAD SHED: We ask for a profound change in the spiritual landscape of our land and move on people's hearts. Lord may we truly come together to see you do a revival in our land, where our hearts cry out to you to come and move. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

MUSIC: Fear not, I am with you. Oh, be not dismayed,
For I am your God and will still give you aid;
I'll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

KIM TURKINGTON: Father God, for those of us who fear you, who walk with you and who love you, Lord that You are our hope, that we wait in hope for you, because you are our help and our shield. So Lord, we just offer you our praise and our worship. And through this time of uncertainty in our land, Lord, we know that we can be secure and we can rest in you, because you never change. You're the same yesterday, today and forever, and we trust you Lord, and we just rest in who you are, and we praise you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

MUSIC: When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

CARLOS WHITFIELD: And we pray that more people than ever before will be opened, will be awakened, will be enlivened by the proclamation of the gospel, and respond, Lord, with saving faith. This is a desperate desire we have, and we lift it up to you, father in Christ's name.

MUSIC: The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake.

NATHAN FAHLIN: The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Here we are at the end of a difficult week and we’re grateful for the crew who helped pull everything together:

David Bahnsen, Megan Basham, Hunter Baker, Emma Eicher, Erick Erickson, Anne Kennedy, Ted Kluck, Carolina Lumetta, Lindsay Mast, Mary Muncy, Jeff Palomino, Mary Reichard, Jenny Rough, Josh Schumacher, and John Stonestreet.

Thanks also to a very busy breaking news crew: Kent Covington, Mark Mellinger, Travis Kircher, Christina Grube, Steve Kloosterman, and Lynde Langdon.

And thanks to the Moonlight Maestros, those sculptors of sound: Carl Peetz and Benj Eicher.

Paul Butler is executive producer.

Harrison Watters is Washington producer, Kristen Flavin is features editor, and Les Sillars is our editor-in-chief. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

If the podcast encouraged you this week, could you take a moment and share it with a friend? It really helps to grow the program! Send a link to a particular story, or from your podcast player share the link to the whole thing. Thanks!

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, and this seems so fitting this week: “A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. From the fruit of his mouth a man eats what is good, but the desire of the treacherous is for violence.” —Proverbs 13:1, 2

We have seen treachery, violence, and sorrow, but Sunday’s coming! Let’s set our hearts on God’s wisdom and not the world’s anger. So go to a Bible-believing church, lift your voice in praise, and let the Lord reorient your heart.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.