“We'll Kill You Graveyard Dead” - A Word To The Christian Patriot
Righteous Composure in the Fog of War
History teaches that police states often rise not merely from top-down imposition, but through popular demand in the midst of fear and instability.
For ten days, protesters and coordinated professional agitators have fought to impede federal immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles. Paid provocateurs have turned LA's downtown streets into a full blown insurrection scene with all the hallmarks of past Color Revolutions and subversive regime change operations seen in Ukraine, Serbia, and Central and South America.
Over the weekend, a nationwide anti-government protest called “No Kings,” pre-planned to coincide with the birthday of President Donald Trump and the celebration of the United States Army's 250th anniversary, took place in over 1500 U.S. cities. Stoked by media provocation and the support of Leftist officials, the chaos in LA grew and expanded to multiple cities across America. Bearing the unmistakable fingerprints of ideological subversion and guerrilla tactics, a fearful public and frustrated local authorities prepared for the worst prior to the weekend's inevitable unrest.
It was in this highly charged context that Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, Florida, made national headlines issuing a blunt warning to anyone planning to descend on his jurisdiction. He stated publicly that anyone who came to his county with the intention of rioting, looting, or harming others would be met with armed resistance from both law enforcement and citizens.
So far, so good. But it was the sheriff's graphic rhetorical escalation that pushed the tension up to an even higher level when he said:
“If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains because we will kill you, graveyard dead.” - Sheriff Wayne Ivey, June 2025
This statement is not just a folksy southern shocker, there is a greater strategy at play. A far more crucial context. Such rhetoric would have been unthinkable years ago. But today, in a culture steered by outrage and destabilized by design, the masses have been conditioned to cheer on severity as justice.
Years of engineered chaos, psychological warfare, and social destabilization have created a fractured public that often ignorantly cheers overreach as justice.
The reaction is the real action
Rage is manufactured, division is weaponized, and trauma is exploited. The crowd claps, not realizing they are applauding their own enslavement.
But let’s ask the real question: Who gave Sheriff Ivey the greenlight to say this?
This could be:
Scripted escalation: Coordinated with state or federal figures to shape public perception of “out-of-control mobs,” paving the way for militarized crackdowns or Palantir-style AI surveillance rollouts.
Controlled opposition theater: A classic Gladio-style play where violence is both permitted and provoked to justify authoritarian responses.
It echoes patterns seen in the declassified CIA Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare manual:
Martyr creation
Staged escalations
Use of provocateurs to justify brutal repression
This appears to be part of a larger rollout of authoritarian normalization, not random escalation but a psychological trap. A dialectic of destruction.
Chaos is manufactured → The people cry out for order → The state answers with tyranny.
And that “order” is technocratic control, AI policing, Palantir surveillance, and policy by emergency decree.
We’re watching the psychology of public consent and behavioral engineering.
A digital boot wrapped in a badge, marching us toward global compliance, not justice.
Falling For The Trick
Sheriff Ivey's threat quickly went viral, drawing both condemnation and praise. But, if we consider the sheriff's words from strategic and spiritual perspectives, in the end the escalation actually only served the cause of the enemy.
The volatility of the circumstances is clear. An ongoing five year period of street-level lawlessness and a persistent dread of lurking instability has left Americans emotionally fatigued and ready to support severe retaliation. Many law-abiding, family-oriented, deeply frustrated, patriotic Americans found Sheriff Ivey’s rhetoric to be a refreshing contrast to the weakness and appeasement on display elsewhere.
The sentiment of wanting to protect one’s home and community is not wrong, in fact it is a biblical command. But, while the zeal for a cavalier challenge to lawless thugs might be understandable, Christians, and indeed all citizens who value righteousness, liberty, and justice—must never let righteous anger degenerate into carnal retaliation.
The moment we answer lawlessness with cruelty, or return anger with bitterness, we risk becoming what we oppose. In Romans 12:17–21, Paul exhorts believers:
“Repay no one evil for evil… Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
And this is exactly where C.S. Lewis’s vision of obedience gives us the deeper meaning behind what it truly means to overcome evil with good.
Graveyard Warnings in a Nation Under Judgment
In the book Perelandra, C.S. Lewis offers a striking vision of what true obedience means in a fallen world:
“In obeying, a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fell, treads Adam’s dance backward, and returns.”
Lewis captures the redemptive beauty of submission to God’s will—not as passivity, but as powerful resistance to the spirit of rebellion. In a time when lawlessness provokes lawless responses, when citizens are baited into vengeance, and when even public servants speak of death as justice, Lewis reminds us that true restoration begins with obedience.
Let’s break that down:
“In obeying…” points not merely to rule-following, but to freely aligning oneself with divine order, as Christ Himself did.
“A rational creature…enacts its creaturely role…” reminds us we are not gods—we are created, and we find peace only by living within God’s design.
“…reverses the act by which we fell…” refers to Adam’s disobedience in Eden. Every act of obedience is a reversal of that ancient rebellion.
“…treads Adam’s dance backward, and returns.” To obey is to step back toward the Garden—to return to God, to truth, to life.
This echoes Romans 5:19:
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
In a culture eager to clap for grave warnings, to demand swift vengeance, and to see enemies destroyed, Christians must remember that obedience is the true counter-revolution. Not a retreat from justice, but a refusal to become the thing we are resisting. Obedience is not weakness. It is the path back to Eden. Run to the cross.
Particularly, because these “protests” follow a pattern of coordinated destabilization tactics, we must be extra vigilant to never allow ourselves or our leaders to fall into the trap of emotional, angry, or hateful responses. An enemy, overt or covert, will use an emotionally charged event or statement as a catalyst various ends: to provoke civil disorder, erode public trust in one or more leaders or institutions, or to gain a rhetorical or operational advantage by forcing a narrative. Psychological manipulation is such a major and now common tactic, that to hastily return a cocky rhetorical threat this way does more to harm the cause of liberty than help by walking directly into one or both of two different kinds of traps:
Trap 1:
To justify radical political transformation (regime change).Trap 2:
Enable overzealous leaders to restrict freedoms for everyone.
The Reaction is The Real Action:
One particularly deceptive tactic employed in such movements is summed up in the phrase: “the reaction is the real action.” That is, the event itself (a protest, a provocation, a destructive act) is not the ultimate goal; rather, it is designed to provoke a disproportionate, emotional, or authoritarian response—which becomes the true mechanism for transformation. The agitator desires not merely chaos, but the discrediting or overextension of the existing order. In this way, when citizens or authorities are goaded into unjust or intemperate action, the revolution advances.
To stand firm for the rule of law is good and necessary. We should support our officers in upholding peace, arresting the violent, and prosecuting lawbreakers—justly and without partiality (cf. Deut. 16:19). But when public rhetoric crosses into the realm of retribution, or signals a willingness to bypass due process, we must pause. We answer to a higher authority and live by a higher standard.
If we, as citizens, cheer such statements uncritically, we may unwittingly contribute to the normalization of unchecked state power. What is cheered in one context may be turned against us in another. History teaches that police states often rise not merely from top-down imposition, but through popular demand in the midst of fear and instability.
Let us be clear: it is not weakness to insist on the righteous application of law rather than emotional retaliation. Christ Himself demonstrated strength through composure under provocation. He rebuked evil without becoming evil. And as His followers, we are called to do likewise.
We can and must reject the dialectic trap set by revolutionaries:
We uphold the law without becoming lawless.
We love peace without being passive.
We resist evil without compromising the gospel.
“A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.” (Proverbs 29:11)
The enemy wants chaos. The reaction is the real action. He wants overreach. He wants a reaction. Let us not give it to him.
Scriptural warning against the dangers of provocation:
Stand Firm Without Striking Back: A Word to the Christian Patriot
“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil…” (1 Peter 2:13–14)
In a time when disorder is celebrated, lawlessness is excused, and provocateurs attempt to bait the righteous into rash action, we must remember our high calling as citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20) and ambassadors of Christ on earth (2 Cor. 5:20). Though we live in a fallen world under often-fallen rulers, we are not anarchists, nor reactionaries, nor violent crusaders—we are servants of the King, and we are never authorized to surrender to carnal impulse.
Scripture teaches a sober, balanced view of government. It is not ultimate, Christ is King (Rev. 19:16) but it is ordained by God as a temporary instrument of justice (Rom. 13:1–7). When rulers are just, we honor them for the Lord’s sake. When they are unjust, we endure, protest, or resist as Daniel did—without pride, without violence, and never without humility and prayer (Dan. 6:10, Acts 5:29).
But in every age, Satan seeks to tempt the faithful with a false zeal—to fight the right battle in the wrong way. He whispers: “Take matters into your own hands.” He provokes with injustice and incites with outrage so that we might betray our trust in God’s sovereignty. He wants us to forfeit the moral high ground in exchange for a moment of gratifying retaliation. But the Apostle warns:
The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:20)
The provocateurs know this. The architects of revolution understand the power of reaction. As the subversive tactic teaches: “The real action is in the reaction.” If they can get the righteous to lose their composure, to lash out in unrighteous anger, they win twice—first by discrediting us, and second by justifying increased state control in the name of “safety.”
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matt. 10:16). Be ready to act, but never out of vengeance. Be willing to speak, but never with slander. Be unshakable in your convictions, but never unmoored from Christlike humility.
Let your patriotism be governed by providence. Let your resistance be marked by righteousness. Let your courage be under control.
As Paul wrote in Romans 12:21,
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
This is not weakness, it is spiritual warfare of a higher kind. It is the path that honors the Lord, preserves the Church’s witness, and resists tyranny without becoming tyrants ourselves.
Soli Deo Gloria
Recommended Sources
Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (on tactics of destabilization)
Michael Malice, The New Right (on the dialectics of media outrage and emotional manipulation)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (on the dangers of state overreach with popular support)
Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (on standing for righteousness without succumbing to reactionary spirit)
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