Former President Jimmy Carter passed away on December 29, 2024, at the age of 100 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. He was the longest-living U.S. president and had been in hospice care since February 2023.

Carter served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. His presidency faced significant challenges, including the Iranian hostage crisis and economic difficulties. He established The Carter Center, focusing on human rights and conflict resolution, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his dedication to peace and human rights.

Despite all these “works,” Carter, a man whose name has been celebrated as synonymous with humanitarianism, progressive virtue, and a self-professed “deeply personal” Christian faith, has now come face to face with the judgment of God.

And what shall we say of his fruits?

Well, a simple perusal of the kinds of evil he advocated for tells us that they were not the evidence of a life transformed by the gospel but a bitter harvest of rebellion, compromise, and outright defiance against God’s character. Despite the claims of the establishment church, Jimmy Carter was not a “remarkable man,” he was a tool of the devil.

The sobering truth is this, that Carter’s legacy was not one of faithfulness to Christ but of accommodation to the world. His relentless support for murder of the unborn—couched in the hollow rhetoric of “personal opposed”—revealed a heart unmoved by the slaughter of the innocent.

Even as millions of unborn children were denied their God-given right to life, Carter aligned himself with the architects of their destruction, lending his approval to a culture of death that has drenched the land in blood. This was not the fruit of the Spirit, it was the rotten produce of a seared conscience.

On the matter of sexual morality, Carter’s theological compromises were no less damning. His public assertion that Jesus would support “same-sex marriage”—a claim he even admitted had no basis in Scripture—was rich, coming from a man who once taught a bible study in a Southern Baptist church.

Carter’s departure from the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000 further demonstrated his unwillingness to submit to the authority of Scripture. He could not abide a church that claimed to uphold the inerrancy of God’s word and rejected the feminist redefinition of gender roles.

Now, Carter has entered eternity, and the accolades of men will avail him nothing. The Nobel Peace Prize on his mantle, the global adulation for his humanitarian efforts, and his carefully curated image as a “devout Christian”—none of it can shield him from the dreadful reality of hearing the words of Matthew 7:23:

“I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

For all his professions of faith, Carter’s life bore the unmistakable mark of a man who served the world, not the King of kings.

Carter’s final destination is not for us to declare with absolute certainty, but the evidence of his life speaks volumes. His fruits were not those of repentance and obedience but of rebellion and compromise. If he has joined Elijah Cummings, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the countless others who have similarly rejected God in favor of their own, he now resides in the proverbial “rat-infested neighborhood” of eternal separation from the God he claimed to know but ultimately rejected.

Let this be a solemn reminder that no amount of public virtue or humanitarian acclaim can substitute for a life truly submitted to Christ. Jimmy Carter’s legacy is one of a man seeking to build his own eternal kingdom, only to find himself in the end weeping and gnashing his teeh—a stark warning of what awaits those who honor Him with their lips while their hearts remain far from Him.

Take heed, for the stakes could not be higher. Eternity is not swayed by good intentions, but by the grace of God through faith in the true gospel—a gospel Carter’s life tragically failed to exemplify.