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When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on abortion, I knew that the Lord wanted IFA to become involved. This case out of Mississippi seemed different from many others that had gone before.
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I believe we were inspired by the Holy Spirit to submit an amicus (friend of the court) brief that included a prayer people could sign. I thought it would be incredible for our prayers to be part of the Supreme Court record in the case. We connected with Christian attorneys who had been praying and waiting for an organization courageous enough to submit a brief outlining how the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions over these 50 years had set our nation up for judgment. Since that lined up with Scripture and they liked our idea about the prayer, we filed this unique brief together.
The next step was a prayer initiative: daily prayer for the justices, for the lawyers on both sides, and for the justices’ clerks. For months, intercessors prayed for the justices and the lawyers by name. There were many, many prayer initiatives by many organizations. But I don’t know of any others that prayed for the justices’ clerks by name.
Oral arguments took place on Dec. 1, 2021, and the nation waited for the decision, expecting an announcement in June. On May 2, 2022, something happened that was utterly unprecedented: The draft opinion was leaked to the press. The opinion outlined the overturning of Roe v. Wade. We don’t know who leaked it, but we know now that it was someone from inside the court. Was it a clerk? How was that person impacted by our prayers? We know it’s no coincidence that we had been covering these people in prayer. And those prayers became even more important.
The public response to the leak was extreme. On one side were those who have long fought and prayed for life and against the legally incorrect Roe decision. On the other side were abortion activists, people who were confused, and people who were enraged. Justice Alito has said publicly many times that he believes the leak put the lives of those justices in the decision’s majority at risk. And since it was not yet a finalized decision, the death of any one of those justices could have changed the result.
Protests erupted outside the homes of all the justices in the majority. Despite state laws that should have been enforced, the protesters carried explicit signs, shouted, and wrote horrible things in chalk on the sidewalks and streets of the neighborhoods where the justices lived. No Supreme Court justices or their families had ever experienced this kind of pressure or these sorts of fear tactics at their homes. Even worse, three of these justices had young children at home.
The leak of the Dobbs draft opinion, and the nation’s response to it, impressed once again upon intercessors nationwide the urgency of persistent prayers for protection, especially for those five justices who supported the overturn of Roe. The answer to these prayers was dramatic.
Nicholas Roske was very angry about the possibility of abortion laws changing. He was also upset about the May 24, 2022, school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and fretful over the possible loosening of gun control in a case the Supreme Court would be ruling on.
Roske decided to act on his obsessions.
He purchased a Glock 17 pistol and packed it up along with some ammunition, two gun magazines, a speed loader, a tactical knife, pepper spray, zip ties, and some tools: a nail punch, a hammer, a screwdriver, and a crowbar.
Armed with these, Roske flew from California to Washington, D.C., his intent being to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Roske was upset about a school shooting and brooding over the possibility of relaxed gun control — and yet he purchased a gun so that he could himself go out and murder a man. Clearly, he was incited and motivated by the world (incendiary rhetoric broadcast all over the internet and the media), by sin, and by Satan.
On June 8, 2022, Roske got out of a taxi in front of Kavanaugh’s house. He spotted some U.S. marshals by the house and proceeded down the street. Then he texted his sister and phoned 911. He told the operator that he was having suicidal thoughts, that he had a gun, and that he planned to kill the justice.
Miraculously, Roske was soon apprehended by local police without incident. Later investigation revealed that Roske had sent this message on Discord: “I am shooting for 3” — indicating that assassinating two other justices may have been part of his plan. It seems this man was being demonically led to first kill Kavanaugh, perhaps other justices, and then himself. It must have been divine intervention that stopped Roske at the last minute.
We don’t always know what effect our prayers are having. In this instance, there may have been further plans for evil that were stopped by the power of prayer. We do know that this particular plan for harm was inexplicably thwarted by a supernatural intervention of God.