As I begin typing this sermon, it is 2:15 p.m. in New York City and Washington D.C., Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
People there are wandering the streets with their arms dangling at their sides, occasionally glancing up toward the open skyline where only 6 hours ago the two towers of the World Trade Center Stood.
Firefighters at that location and at the Pentagon are still fighting blazes there and attempting to minimize the danger at those scenes.
Newscasters are talking to witnesses, retired heads of state, retired Generals ~ primarily because the heads of state and active Generals are all in secret places around the country trying to sort this mess out ~ and they are asking these witnesses and experts, “What went wrong?” “Could this have been avoided?” “What will we do now?”
I’ve been watching television all morning, and I haven’t heard anyone with a good answer yet. During one of those interviews General Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Commander ended his comments with his own question; “Will we ever be the same?”
Now, I have to say here that my stomach is upset. It is upset because since I turned my television on at 7 a.m. mountain time, I have been angry, and sad. I have heard the reports that well over 50 thousand people may have been in and around the World Trade Center towers, and very many of them died today. I’ve been angry and sad because I learned that the planes that hit those buildings and the Pentagon were hijacked commercial airliners with passengers. I’ve been angry and sad because for every one of those passengers and office workers and police and firemen that died today, there will be entire families left behind grieving. Children wondering what happened to their mom or dad ~ or maybe mom and dad.
I’ve been angry and sad because this is my country, and someone who has no right to be in my country came here to do this thing.
So I’m angry and I’m sad, and I feel for the sufferers and I care about them.
Having said that, I want to give you my answer to the question that gentleman on television asked this morning.
“Will we ever be the same?”
My answer is, “I hope not”.
In all this tragedy, all this grief and loss, the very worst thing that could happen in reference to the events of this day would be if after the pieces were picked up, and all the details were sorted out, we were unchanged.
In times past I have had (or created) many opportunities to speak against the evils of our modern society. Like many other preachers and writers I have expounded the parallels between the present United States of America and ancient Greece on the edge of its decline. I have said with others, and rightly so, that we have become as ancient Rome was in its corruption and moral decay.
I have warned, when I was given opportunity, as men and women of God have warned for many, many years, that if we as a nation do not turn to God in repentance we will not long stand ~ and I still believe that.
As a result of today’s events there will be sermons preached touting these same truths and warnings, all over our country over the next few weeks.
So I’m not going to go there. I want to address here, Christ’s church. I want to talk to each and every man woman or young person in this country who calls himself/herself ‘Christian’, and legitimately believes in the shed blood of Christ and His resurrection for their salvation.
I want to address the church.
We must not stay the same. We must never be the same again. We live and have our homes and our roots and our future in a nation that once declared openly that it was a nation under God.
A nation that has gone full circle and one step at a time turned its political and social and economical and artistic, and in many cases, religious back on that God, saying ‘we no longer need You’.
We live in this country rubbing shoulders day in and day out with people who are dead in trespasses and sins and we often act, or fail to act, as though we don’t care one bit.
We are sitting in the gates of Sodom, conducting our business and buying and selling and eating and drinking and living as though we are as ignorant as the rest, of what is to come.
We as believers have the cure for the world’s ills and we hoard it like a prized toy.
We have the promise of heaven and we shove it way down into our pocket with a closed fist as though giving it to others will somehow ruin it for ourselves.
The American church for many years has been guilty of elitism.
The collective attitude has been ‘You are not like us and you are welcome within our walls only after you’ve changed your ways. You will become like us, or you cannot be part of us, ~ and if you think the Pharisees of old made up a lot of their own hair-splitting rules and religious regulations, baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’
For the most part we have closed ourselves behind thick oaken doors and the nearest the outsider can get to figuring out what we’re all about, is to watch a few vague, misshapen shadows pass by our stained glass windows as we go about our very pious and religious exercises.
That’s how they see us, and to a very large degree they’ve decided we have nothing to offer and no help for them outside an occasional free blanket in winter or hot bowl of soup for the indigent.
We must not go unchanged.
Christians, we are witnessing first hand, the things Jesus was talking about when He talked about how things would be at the end. We are witnessing the unfolding of all the events foretold by the prophets of God in both Old and New Testaments. We are the eyes of the last days.
Can you see it? Can’t you almost feel the ground tremble as God’s judgment express comes roaring down the line? Where is your sense of urgency? Is it there? Do you feel it? If not, are you concerned that you don’t feel it?
Is it enough to read your ‘Left Behind’ books and gather like a small cult to talk about how exciting the story is and speculate on what the writers will say in the next volume?
In even that extra-biblical, largely fictional resource, do you see the very obvious message that millions upon millions are going to be LEFT BEHIND?
Church, we have been given a golden opportunity today, to turn every conversation around us to eternal things. Over the coming weeks hardly a day will go by when each of us does not run into someone who wants to talk about the terrible tragedy on the East coast. Many of them are going to have honest questions, and some of those questions are going to be hard.
Are you ready to give an account for the hope that is in you? Will you have an answer when an angry man or a sobbing woman asks, “Why would a loving God allow this to happen?” or “Why didn’t God stop it?”
The third chapter of second Peter contains some words that should be very familiar to students of the Bible. And one line there in verse 9 says what people all over our nation should be hearing from our lips right now; that the Lord is “...not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance”.
In these verses Peter is answering the question asked in verse 4. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter has prophesied that in the last days, (that’s now...) mockers and scoffers would come, asking the faithless question;
“Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation”.
Are you listening, Christian? That prophecy is being fulfilled all over our world daily; because people for a long time have scoffed and mocked and asked us that question. Not always in those words, but the doubt is expressed, nonetheless.
So what is your answer? Peter’s answer is that the end is near, and it will be a terrible end for the unbeliever. Are you willing to tell them that?
If it might save even one?
Do you think the destruction of the World Trade Center was terrible? Are you still in shock that the very center of our military intelligence and leadership could be attacked from the air, and that in two hours time our government could be virtually shut down?
Well listen to this!
“...the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”
Do you criticize God for the evil, murderous acts of a band of rich psychopaths? Do you continue to scoff at His promise and say, “Where is the promise of His coming”?
Well you should be trembling in fear, lest He suddenly come as He said He would, and find you unrepentant!
Are you willing to tell them that? If it might save even one?
Christian, are you afraid of the hard questions? Will you avoid discussions with others about today’s events because they might turn to spiritual things and you may be caught without an answer?
Well you have a pretty hard question of your own to counter with!
“Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?”
Instead of scoffing, unbeliever, you could be walking assured of His coming, secure in the promise of eternal relationship with a loving God, and you yourself,
“...looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat.
But according to His promise we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”
But the message you must first get clear, unbeliever, ~ the message we must first make clear, Christian, is that the Lord is not wishing for ANY to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
The American people as one, right now, are in shock and wanting answers...wanting comfort...wanting assurance; something to cling to. Something that is sure.
The general attitude is that God is either not there, or uncaring, or somehow responsible.
The God we now have an opportunity to show them; to tell them about; is the God Who is not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
This is our Golden opportunity, Christian, to tell our country, one person at a time, that the one constant of the Universe ~ the one unchanging truth that cannot be blown up or burned up or snatched away by any power in heaven or earth, is God’s invitation to come to Him by way of Calvary’s Cross and escape the destruction.
This is our Golden opportunity to tell them that we serve a God who wants our fellowship. A God who cares about what is important to us. A God who loves all those people who died tragically today, with an infinitely greater love than we could ever hope to have.
This is our Golden opportunity to tell them...to tell even the scoffers...that the Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward -them- , calls out to them, pleads with them through us, to be reconciled to Him.
Church, our nation is hurting, and worse, it is decaying, and it’s our fault.
Are you angry with me for some of the things I’ve said here? I’m a little angry with myself. I know there are congregations and individuals all over, who are active in Kingdom work and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ by every means and resource available to them. But too many are not. Too many churches are precisely as I’ve described them here. And all of us, all of US, are far too often complacent about the very thing that should be our highest priority of life.
So our nation’s condition is our fault, church.
Today is our Golden opportunity. It will pass. People will adjust. They’ll dry their tears, and raise monuments to the dead. They’ll lay flowers on the streets of New York and go back to work.
Investigators, hopefully, will find out who perpetrated this horror and bring them to justice.
It will be over. It will be a memory.
Then when will the next Golden opportunity arise, and how many will die without Christ in the interim?
God is not wishing, or willing, that any should perish.
What about us?
No, General Clark, we’ll never be the same. I hope.
