The name "Iryna" means "Peace" in Ukrainian.
On August 22, 2025, just before 10 p.m., peace was killed.
That post comes from Dan Dillon, the co-founder of Not the Bee. I share his sentiments. I see my four daughters in Iryna's terrified face. It is impossible for me to ignore. Life simply cannot continue on the same trajectory as before that horrific moment.
The media ignored, then tried to suppress, this story because it knew what emotions it would create. It knew there would be specific taboo cultural sensitivities that would be ripped wide open by the haunting images.
But men of God do not suppress the truth, no matter how disturbing the resulting aftereffects may be. It is the truth, not maintaining winsomeness and impartiality, that sets us free.
There are already a thousand opinions being broadcast on the internet by a variety of people from all over our scattered sociopolitical spectrum. My guess is that, unfortunately, social media will act as the pressure valve for anger and little systemic change will come from this. Now that suppression of the story has failed, certain actors on the Left are already working to try to draw comparisons between Iryna and - I kid you not - George Floyd in an attempt to temper emotions into generic calls for reform.
"Evangelicals for Harris" like David French, of course, already pushed for change. "Change" to our justice system à la Barrack Obama and BLM is what got us in this mess.
There is no comparison between George Floyd and Iryna Zarutska. Floyd was a career criminal who was high on multiple drugs after stealing from a store and resisted arrest when officers instructed him to sit in a police cruiser. One arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, placed his knee on Floyd's shoulder blade to try to restrain him as a crowd gathered, but unknown to the officers was the fact that Floyd had a cocktail of fentanyl and other drugs in his system that were overtaxing his cardiovascular and respiratory systems.
Iryna, meanwhile, was a refugee who fled a war. She took asylum in North Carolina and got a job at a pizza restaurant. She was quietly listening to something on her AirPods as she respectfully took a seat on a public train. He throat was then violently slashed and she bled out in shock on the floor while people filmed her dying.
French is right that images are powerful. But one image was a lie built around a criminal, while the other image is truth portraying the death of an innocent.
Men of God do not tell lies and they do not make foolish comparisons.
'The Lord hates six things;
in fact, seven are detestable to him:
arrogant eyes, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that plots wicked schemes,
feet eager to run to evil,
a lying witness who gives false testimony,
and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.'- Proverbs 6:16-19
You'll notice in that passage that God does not only despise the schemers, murderers, and the liars, but those who want to plot evil and stir up trouble.
There are many of those on social media today, trying to pit white versus black and stoke ethnic tensions. It would be wise for a man of God to take note of "what time it is" without falling into the company of bad actors.
My son, don't travel that road with them
or set foot on their path,
because their feet run toward evil
and they hurry to shed blood.- Proverbs 1:15-16
How then, should men of God respond?
Since many of your pastors won't talk about this because our churches have given up the fear of God for the sake of Moral Therapeutic Deism that preaches therapy, not the Gospel, from the pulpit, I will lay out a few thoughts.
1. Vengeance is the Lord's.
'Do not say, "I will repay evil";
wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.' - Proverbs 20:22'Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God's wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.' - Romans 12:19
'You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I tell you, don't resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.' - Matthew 5:38-39
Men of God are not to seek revenge. God is sovereign over the nations (Psalm 22:28). He determines where and when men will be born (Acts 17:26) and rules over everything that happens, from criminal justice systems to foreign policy.
God has established spheres of proper authority - a separation of powers, if you will, that did not fail to escape the American Founding fathers. There is the family, the church, and the magistrate (government), and of these three, the government is appointed to enact God's vengeance on criminals.
'For it is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For it is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.'
- Romans 13:4
This passage was often used wrongly and out of context during the pandemic, but in the case of Iryna, it is applied rightly. It is the government's job to ensure criminals are held accountable. For as God told Noah,
'I will require a penalty for your lifeblood; I will require it from any animal and from any human; if someone murders a fellow human, I will require that person's life.
Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans his blood will be shed,
for God made humans in his image.'- Genesis 9:5-6
To that end, the U.S. Department of Justice has now charged the suspect in Iryna's murder. The president of the United States is also calling for the death penalty.
A man of God will continue to petition his government for justice according to God's standards. To this end, a man of God will not merely vent on social media, but take civic action to see reforms that line up with God's commands.
2. Be ready to enact justice if "God's servant" fails.
When a government fails to hold criminals accountable but becomes destructive toward the public it is supposed to defend, it has sinned and is in violation of its purpose and authority. During many periods of history, God-fearing men have had to discern when such abuse must spur them into action.
It happened 3,000 years ago to the tribes of Israel before they had a king. In the time of the judges, a man from the tribe of Levi traveled through a city belonging to the tribe of Benjamin. When he was there, men from the city came to where he was staying and tried to break in so they could rape him.
The Levite gave them his concubine instead and the evil men "raped her and abused her all night until morning." She collapsed and died. Afterward, the Levite cut up her body and sent it to towns across Israel as evidence of the evil that had been committed.
All of Israel was outraged. "Think it over, discuss it, and speak up," went the cry. The tribes of Israel gathered to demand that the tribe of Benjamin hand over the criminals, but the Benjamite leaders refused.
Outraged, the leaders of Israel gathered and prayed to God (a key point of the story) to ask what they should do.
They went up, wept before the Lord until evening, and inquired of him, 'Should we again attack our brothers the Benjaminites?'
And the Lord answered, 'Fight against them.'
Because the Benjamite government had put partisan politics over justice, the nation descended into civil war. It came at great cost to both sides - tens of thousands of people died and the the tribe of Benjamin was devastated because of the sins of a few men on a single night.
That same refrain echoes throughout history. Our Founding Fathers knew that there was a time and a place where "rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God" - a time when the government has ceased being a servant of God and is actively serving its own wicked ends.
Men of God are to be peacemakers, but not pushovers. When the government becomes wicked, Thomas Jefferson said "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government." This seminal quote from the Declaration of Independence is rooted in the idea that men of God will step up to hold the government accountable if it will not hold criminals (including itself) accountable.
Men of God are called to uphold righteousness and take up the cause of the oppressed (Psalm 82:3, Proverbs 31:8-9, Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 24:11-12). They are not to seek vengeance and must "turn the other cheek" to abuses against them personally, but they must rescue their neighbors who are being led to the slaughter. To ignore tyranny and lawlessness is to shun the command to love their neighbors and provide for their families.
3. Train to uphold your duty.
If the government fails and brothers go to war against brothers, you must not only be capable of discerning how and when to act, but able to act.
A man of God must be like Joshua, who was commanded to meditate on God's Law "day and night" (Joshua 1:8), even as he prepared for war.
A man of God must also be fit of body and spirit, so that he is able to defend himself, his family, and his countrymen. This means a man of God must not be a lazy glutton.
When a crazed, 14-time offender attacks you or a loved one, are you prepared to stop him? Have you trained? The Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment because they were men of God who wanted to avoid physical violence and knew that freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and protest were essential to this.
But they also wrote the Second Amendment as a backup to the First.
Could you enact lawful and lethal force on an armed assailant to protect your family? If there is a natural disaster, can you carry your loved ones out of the floodwaters? If, God forbid, America at some point in your lifetime ends up embroiled in civil war or street-by-street violence, could you defend your family and neighborhood like Kyle Rittenhouse defended himself against an angry mob? Would you be willing to defy tyranny to properly defend yourself in places where elected officials have tried to deny you of that right?
A man of God is not violent, but knows how to conduct violence when it is right and necessary to do so. As C.S. Lewis said about chivalry and Lancelot:
The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.
The Christian world was built on such values. It would be wise for a modern man of God to listen to the echoes of those who came before.
4. Understand that our fight is not against flesh and blood.
The Apostle Paul said it clearly in Ephesians 6. We live in a world both visible and invisible. Our society has put blinders on itself in its quest to prove that God does not exist, and has to that effect explained away spiritual problems with scientific micro-analyzing. We are told that serial criminals are simply oppressed and need more "mental health" services to help them deal with all the bigotry and trauma that has caused them to become mass-murdering psychopaths.
Meanwhile, the answer is staring us right in the face:
Men of God know that demons are real.
I've stood in the ruins of the cemetery at Gadera, the ancient Roman city where Jesus cast demons out of a lunatic into a herd of pigs. I've seen the steep cliffs that run down into the Sea of Galilee. I've stood among the short trees and heard the wind whisper through the branches.
Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?'
'My name is Legion,' he replied, 'for we are many.'
The man charged with Iryna's violent death has been claiming since January of this year that "material" was implanted in him that causes him to do things. He told officers in January that this "material" inside him "controlled when he did things like eat, walk and talk." After the murder of Iryna, he said he didn't kill her, but the "material" did.
...the material used my body, stabbed the lady.
For far too long, churches have ignored the very real demonic forces that hold individuals and nations hostage, despite the fact that the Bible is full of references to a much larger spiritual war happening all around us in the "invisible" world.
Men of God will understand that laws and bullets cannot defeat this enemy. It is only the power of God that can cast out demons. Therefore men of God must arm themselves with truth, righteousness, and prayer.
'Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit — which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.' - Ephesians 6:16-18
Conclusion:
The United States is tearing itself apart from within and being torn apart from without. Whether it is mass migration, cartel violence, woke Marxism, rampant sexual sin, or unrighteous ideologies in ethnic communities that exalt fatherlessness and crime, we all know that something is seriously wrong with our country.
We know it needs to be set right, but none of us know what that means. Many of us fear what that means.
Men of God will not be swayed. They will not seek violence, but they will not fear it. Instead, they will prepare their hearts, minds, and bodies to do their duty in line with God's commands, discerning what is right by immersing themselves in God's Word and surrounding themselves with other men who do the same, so that iron may sharpen iron (Proverbs 27:17).
I can't answer what will happen in the coming years and decades, or what your specific role will be.
What I can tell you is to learn to take proper and godly action, and to take heart: For while a woman named peace was brutally murdered, the source of peace will never fail.
'I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.' - Jesus Christ, Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
