The boy stared into the mirror and saw something staring back.
Not his own eyes. Not a confused teenager. Not even the blurred outline of pain he had grown used to living with. No, in the reflection, there was something else. A presence. A whisperer. A friend. A demon.
The room was dim. A computer screen hummed nearby, painting shadows on the walls. Somewhere off-camera, the boy had begun to unravel. And on August 26, 2025, he crossed a threshold.
Robin Westman entered a Catholic school in Minneapolis carrying weapons and a manifesto. His YouTube channel had already spilled its contents. Pages of rage. Handwritten threats. Diagrams of churches. Weapons labeled with obscenities. The press reported the horror. People, The Sun, the Times all covered it. Breitbart added something the others didn’t: a sketch in the manifesto—a cartoon drawing of a demon speaking from the mirror.
Whether it was real or not, the blood was.
We should be terrified.
But not surprised.
Paul’s letter to the Romans reads like it was written yesterday. Chapter one does not creak with age. It howls. It marches into our cities with fire on its breath.
This world is not simply immoral. It is judicially abandoned. We are not merely confused. We are under sentence.
“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
They suppress it.
They hold it down like a drowning man holds a lifeguard under the water.
The judgment of God is not only future. In many ways, it is already here.
He gave them up.
That phrase should rattle our bones.
He gave them up.
To what? To the lusts they begged for. To the identities they carved into their flesh. To the dishonor they wore like medals.
He handed them over.
Paul does not say, “They slipped.” He says, “They spiraled.”
When God stops restraining, humanity starts performing.
Men became women in their minds. Women became men in their surgeries. Children became experiments. And the mirror said, “You’re brave.”
Romans one lays the indictment out like a legal brief. And in 2025, the courtroom is crowded.
This is not accidental.
This is not a cultural drift.
This is God letting go of the leash.
Robin Westman didn’t see himself that way. He didn’t see judgment or sin. He saw confusion, yes, but also purpose. He made videos. He scribbled messages. He prepared.
The manifesto was real. The threats were real. The church schematics, the coded diagrams, the weapons stamped with hate speech, the YouTube uploads hours before the attack.
The demon drawing?
But if you have eyes to see, you know demons don’t need ink to speak.
The terrifying truth is that Romans 2 is written for the rest of us.
Paul does not end with the transgender anarchist. He turns his gaze to the church. The people in the pew. The man with a good haircut and a good Bible.
You think you’re safe because you don’t identify as something else?
You think you’re clean because you don’t use new pronouns?
Paul laughs in your direction and then sharpens the sword.
“Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?”
Judgment is not just for the radical left. It’s for the respectable right.
Not just for the anarchist with a shotgun. It’s for the choir member with bitterness. It’s for the one who mocks sin in others but justifies it in his own pocket of life.
The judgment of God is impartial.
He doesn’t grade on the curve of Twitter outrage. He judges in truth.
Paul turns the knife deeper.
“You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
We hold the truth. We preach the gospel. But when we live as if it hasn’t changed us, the unbeliever laughs. Or weeps.
There is no greater tragedy than a church with clear doctrine and dirty hearts. When we point fingers without washing our hands, we become living contradictions.
And the demon in the mirror nods….
The Jewish readers of Paul’s letter had something we do, too: a list of privileges.
They had the Scriptures. So do we.
They had the right rituals. So do we.
They had a covenant sign on their bodies. We have one on our church bulletins.
But Paul takes the scalpel to that pride. He doesn’t care about their signs. He wants to see their hearts.
Circumcision, baptism, church membership, prayer routines, Bible reading streaks…all worthless if the soul remains untouched.
The boy in the mirror thought he was becoming his true self. But he was just completing the rebellion.
You in the pew think you’re immune. But your pride may be just as deadly.
God is not impressed by how many times you attend a men’s conference.
He is looking at your heart.
Paul lowers the gavel with one final strike.
“A Jew is one inwardly. Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.”
You want to know who belongs to God?
It is not the one with perfect doctrine and polished answers. It is the one who has been undone.
The one who fears his own sin more than he fears public opinion.
The one who hears the scream from Minneapolis and doesn’t gloat or shrug but drops to his knees and begs for mercy.
The one who knows he has a mirror too.
So what now?
We preach Christ.
Not self-affirmation.
Not compassion without truth.
Not polished tweets.
We preach the bloody cross to a world enchanted by its own reflection. We speak of wrath and righteousness. Of sin and salvation. Of demons that whisper and a Savior who silences them.
We must speak.
We must love enough to say what burns.
There is a boy, maybe in your town, staring into a screen right now. Maybe sketching, maybe whispering, maybe planning. Maybe he won’t pull a trigger, but maybe he’ll pull away from the last thread of truth he has left.
And what will he hear from you?
Flattery?
Silence?
Or the gospel?
Because there is a demon in the mirror.
And only Christ can cast it out.
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Your article was so profound! I sent it out to people on my email list. The way you wrote about this problem was like no one else. God has gifted you with a way with words!