Jack L. Martin Praise Assembly of God
Sept. 13, 2009
TITLE: In the Shadows of 2001 9/11 What have we learned?
Jeremiah 8:19-20Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: "Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?" "Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?" "The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Maybe the Question for America today would be this:
.Is the Lord no longer in the United States, Is her King no longer there?
In the words of the song writer - Have the 3 that we admire most, The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost caught the last train for the coast.
This Past Friday was the 8th Anniversary of the tragic attacked on Our Nation..
And especially in cities like New York, and Washington DC and a small community in western Pennsylvania called Shanksville, there were grim reminders of that day.
I sat front row at our memorial service in Spring Hill and watched 2 men I respect deeply weep as they remembered the deaths of their own sons. - Arm around one as he cried.
A lot has happened in the years since that day when 4 Commercial Airliners suddenly became implements destruction for those who hate our nation and its freedom and its God.
I wish this morning that I could stand in this pulpit, and tell wonderful stories of how this nation was drawn back to God by the events of that day.
I wish that it had borne only good fruit & that America had come to her senses and national revival had taken place because of it.. How great it would be to be able to say
There is good fruit. - Many that day got saved,
Many got saved in all the funerals and all of the pauses to bring out another body.
Many got saved all over the world because of the shock over 9/11
Literally more money was donated by private means than at any time before in the history of the world.
People lined up around blocks all over the world to donate blood.
Politicians stopped there squabbling and came together in defense of our nation.
Other nations joined in our grief.
And I don’t mean to down play the good that has come from it.
But I have to be fully transparent this morning in saying that America has missed almost completely what God would have done in our nation had we continued in the spirit that
God wanted it to serve as a wake up call as to how far we had moved from Him.
• How far out of his protective hands we had chosen to go.
He was wanting America to stop quoting II Chron. 7:14 and instead choose to obey it.
And for a time we did just that.
• For a time the congress worked feverishly as one.
• For a time people gave unselfishly
• People started back to church and praying.
• Kids were allowed to pray in school.
• For a time America was a nice place to live again.
For a time!
• But that’s the problem, TIME....
Time makes us forget what has happened
1. and brings us back to the same stupid place we were before the tragedy
George Sant ayana famous quote........
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Over the course of the past 8 year’s we have not only slid back to where we were before Sept 11, 2001 but we have fallen even further.
In the months and years that have followed:
One Man who brought the suit to remove under God from the pledge of allegiance, later filed to stop the Congress of the United States from opening in prayer, and has said he will challenge in God we trust next.
At a time when we need the Lord more than ever.
- A conservative Episcopal Priest was defrocked for complaining that the denomination had become too liberal.
- A navy Chaplain was told he could not pray in Jesus name because it might offend someone.
- A woman was made to take down her American flag at work because it offended someone from another nation.
-
A few years after 9/11/01 - The Catholic church was rocked with the priest sex scandal
- People in trusted positions, people we have looked up to have failed in alarming ways. - Martha Stewart Enron MCI, our economy is crashing down around us, homes are being foreclosed on at record rates. Even our military, once a picture of all the good this nation stood for having events like Abu Grave prison in Iraq.
RIGHT IN THE SHADOW OF 9/11
1. Congress both republican and democrat are back to doing business as usual.
2. Steroid user has rocked the baseball world and I’m sure other sports as well.
3. Dishonesty in the Olympics. Fixing outcomes.
4. Stories like the current ones of the events of groups such as ACORN.
5. Czars being created outside the confines of the normal process.
6. Many with pasts that indicate they hate all this nation stands for.
7. Christians symbols being covered at Georgetown Univ. when the president spoke so that no one would be offended.
8. We’ve had floods, fires, disaster after disaster. Katrina to name just one.
And one strange thing- 100 years ago. Azusa Calif. Was the place that the fires of the Holy Spirit were poured out. Fire is again an issue in California, but this time it’s a raging fire covering thousands of acres, destroying hundreds of homes. Taking at least the life of two firemen in the process.
We ask the Rhetorical question
"How did this Generation get dumb as rocks?"
• Simple answer. They didn’t learn from our mistakes.
Again I repeat the words of George Sant ayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
The apostle Paul taught that the Old Testament was an example to us that we would learn from their failures, there turning away, but as a nation we haven’t.
As a dog returns to its vomit so have we as a people.
Hear me church we are heading back down the same path to perdition that we were on before Sept 11, 2001.
• Any ground we gained has been swallowed up like a Florida sink hole.
Even the ridiculous arguments over what will be where the WTC was.
8 Years later and there sits only a hole in the ground to mock our present way of living.
There is a memorial at Ground Zero - It’s a memorial to our godlessness.
I can hear the words of Jesus
Matthew 2337"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. 38Look, your house is left to you desolate.
On the Sunday Morning following the original Sept 11, 2001 I preached this same text.
Deuteronomy 30:1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.
GOD WAS TRYING TO SPEAK THIS TO US.
GOD IS STILL TRYING TO SPEAK TO US.
4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU HAVE FALLEN.
6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
7 The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. 8 You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. 9 Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land.
But because we failed to obey, our lands have been burning, plagues like “Swine Flu” now threaten our very lives., our stock market has become totally unstable. Our corporate leadership has faltered.
But please hear what those scripture go on to say: What is our hope if we turn back.
The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, 10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
FRIENDS THE LORD IS STILL SAYING THAT BUT FOR HOW MUCH LONGER I DON’T KNOW!
He gave them and is giving us an Offer of Life or Death
11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. ( IM TIRED OF ITS TO HARD TO LIVE THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ) 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
CHURCH PLEASE HEAR ME THIS MORNING THIS IS STILL GODS OFFER
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
1. LOVE GOD
2. WALK IN HIS WAYS
3. KEEP HIS DECREES
4. BASK IN HIS BLESSINGS
But please - Listen to the warning for disobedience.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient,
and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,
18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed.
I believe this morning that is prophetic for this nation.
You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
Please hear me... listen to Gods word to his people...19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
CHAP 31 What a mark of Gods Creativity... He is saying if you can’t remember then make a song or something to remember it by. it’s that important. YOU’RE TIME
19 "Now write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them. 20 When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant. 21 And when many disasters and difficulties come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath." 22 So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.
If a new verse were to be added to America the beautiful it would go this way
O wasted and forsaken land.
How have we grown so lame.
From Gods rich hand
to mans own plan.
We labor now in vain.
America America
when will you heed My call,
And turn from sin
Invite Me in
lest pride precede your fall..
We are a nation of Isolation. Begging the forgiveness of nations we have saved from ruin.
1. A debtor to nations such as China, Saudi Arabia.
2. A nation afraid to fly, and inconvenienced every time we do.
3. Afraid to take the mail out of our mail box.
4. Afraid of what will happen next.
5. 1 has literally put thousands to flight.
At first the enemy was a foreign invader who hated us
In many cases today it’s the very people we have elected to Government who are dismantling all that God has given us and done for us. TEA PARTYS
Our schools have cow towed to Islam.... You can’t say Jesus but you can force them to read books on the Koran in our National Universities and our Public Schools.
Paul said if anyone come with any other gospel let them be accursed - but were afraid that’s politically incorrect.
In the words of the Prophet Jeremiah in chap 8 I repeat
20 "The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Were as lost as a nation as we were before Sept 11.
1. Where a ship without a compass.
But God is still crying out to us today..... To you and to me. To HIS PEOPLE CALLED BY HIS NAME.
Church we have got to quit playing church., quit going through the motions..
1. We have got to quit waiting for someone else to do something about it.
2. We have got to quit saying were small.
3. We have got to quit letting sin reign in our own mortal bodies.
4. We have got to stand up for Jesus.
Jesus said you are either with me or against me...
Even if America never repents we are accountable to God for what we have done.
One last time the words of George Sant ayana
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
We can choose to stick our head in the sand but Judgment is coming.
Friend now is the time to examine your own relationship with the Lord and make right anything that has to be righted.
I close with this from Isa chapter 6
5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" 9 He said, "Go and tell this people:
ALTAR CALL
Words of Michael W. Smith - This is your time.
