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"In God We Trust" "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Familiar? Who has not heard these words on any given day in this nation? Are these merely words, or are they truths that reside within the hearts of the people known as "Americans?" Let me speak to you from my heart. Any people when faced with a series of tragedies such as these quite naturally focuses on the immediacy of of the circumstances. The injured must be treated. The dead must be identified. The survivors of those murdered need to be notified. Cleanup must begin and lives pieced back together. These are all natural and understandable first responses to tragedies like those experienced by the American people on September 11, 2001. But as the shock begins to wear off, as the immediate terror begins to fade, as life returns to a condition of normalcy (if I may be permitted to use the word normalcy), the focus begins to shift from the immediate circumstances toward the cause; toward the universal question, "Why?" As I listen to the news coverage of today's attack on Americans, I hear two recurring questions: (1) How could this happen?; (2) Who is responsible for these attacks? Our national security people believe this entire tragedy is the responsibility of one man...Usama bin Laden. I am going on record today as one who strongly disagrees with the current line of thinking about who is responsible and how this catastrophe came to be. When a car, piloted by a drunken driver, slams into another car killing all, is the car responsible for the tragic loss of life, or the drunken driver himself? When a criminal wields a gun and kills innocent civilians and students, is the gun the responsible agent for the deaths that ensued, or the criminal who pulled the trigger? In situations like I have just described a thinking individual would easily recognize the true agent of responsibility. Now we are faced with a new type of tragedy, but our reasoning must not be clouded by emotion. Not today. Not in this hour. Today in the United states of America we are experiencing an increasing movement away from God, not towards him. Little by little America gets farther and farther away from its God. Although our currency is struck and printed with the words, "In God We Trust," it is a statement that has lost its validity. No longer is the United States placing its trust in God. As a nation we have become complacent and see ourselves as independent agents with no need of God. We have removed him from our schools. We have removed him from our laws. We have excluded him from our considerations and look with disdain on those who love and revere the living and true God. Today the United States trusts in its world economic status and its military prowess. How ironic that in the early business hours on our eastern shore we are hit in the absolute center of our false trust; the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, both powerful symbols of our economic and military power. It is not Usama bin Laden who is responsible for today's attack. Today I heard former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger state when speaking about bring those responsible for today's tragedy to justice, "...not only those who carry out these acts, but also those who make it possible." Who is ultimately responsible for today's tragedy? I am. And for that I am inexplicably sorry. But not me alone. You are responsible as well. All people who name the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as Savior and Lord and sit quietly and allow God to be made an ever diminishing entity in both our nation and in our national thinking. When we allow prayer, a basic religious fundamental, to be stolen from us, when we allow God to be replaced with "things" and with "persons," we must be prepared to face the consequences. Today, September 11, 2001 is a divine wakeup call to Christians world wide. I am blatantly trying to get your attention. I am openly defying the "norm," and I am not eliminating myself from accepting my portion of responsibility for September 11, 2001. Indeed, I find myself in the same position and frame of mind as the prophet Daniel. In his studies, Daniel came to understand the reason and duration of the captivity and desolations of Israel. His prayer to God is provided for you here: And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. [Daniel 9:3-13] Though Daniel himself was personally innocent, he did not hesitate to align himself with the people who were responsible for the sad condition of Israel. We, as a nation, have rebelled against God and his word. We have ceased to give him his rightful place in our nation. All of this evil has come upon us, but it has come by way of our own complacency. Daniel prayer for mercy and forgiveness and so must we. Yet we must guard against offering empty and useless words, but be prepared to bring our lives and our actions in line with what we declare to God in prayer. Perhaps you are actively working to restore God's plan an purpose to this nation. Even so, we are one people who share in a collective responsibility to live honorably before our God. Our national leaders are calling today's attacks, "... cowardly acts." With that I will not argue. It was both cowardly and contemptuous. But the terrorist attack on this country and its people was no more cowardly than the silence of the church as it has been stripped of its God-given authority and presence in this nation in particular. Webster's New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary defines "coward" as: 1. a person who lacks courage to meet danger, difficulty, or pain; a poltroon; a timid or pusillanimous man. Search your own heart as I have mine. Have you and I (the collective we) not been cowardly in watching as the silent victim while our Christian liberties have been slowly strangled to death? Have you and I not sat there and thought that someone should do or say something? Today God has spoken to the people of the United States. His message is simple and powerful: "You have trusted in money, you have trusted in the power of your military, and you have not prevailed. You have forsaken me and gone your own way. Your enemies have scoffed at your economy, they have mocked your armies. Return to me and be my covenant people once again. Place your trust and confidence in the God of your salvation. Put an end to wickedness and unbelief today and return to the shelter of my hand. My arm is not shortened that I can no longer save. My strength is not abated that I cannot restore. Remember your foundation and return thereto." Indeed, we have placed God on the shelf and have erected idols of economy, idols of military might, and idols of technology and education above our God. We have elected to take our lives into our own hands and trust in ourselves. God has not failed us, we have failed both God and ourselves. "In God We Trust" "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Are these merely words, or are they truths that reside within the hearts of the people known as "Americans?" Are they in your heart? Do not look to your neighbor for an answer. Do not hold your neighbor accountable to make these words living and true once again. You must decide to make them valid. You are responsible to make them real, living words. My trust is in God and I am putting him and his word, his plan, and his purpose before you today. In God "I" trust. There is no collective "we" unless each "I" shares the same foundational trust. If you will trust in God alone, then when we meet it may then be said, "In God We Trust." We, as a people, as a nation, will never be the same again. September 11, 2001 is a turning point for these United States. But before we compound our errors we need to take a quiet moment to focus on God's invitation to us in the book of the prophet Isaiah, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; thought they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." Isaiah 1:18-20 Like Daniel, we need to acknowledge our transgression and turn form it, not merely put a new face on it. Trusting in our own abilities or in the abilities of those in leadership of this nation is simply wrong. If God be for us, who can be against us? This is the time to restore God to his rightful place as the sovereign of this nation; a nation made great because of its trust in God alone. This is a time for us to speak with a single voice and to pray that God's will be accomplished not only in this nation, but throughout the entire world. It is futile to pray that the world return to a state of peace and unity. There will never be any peace on the earth until Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, returns again and brings his peace with him. Indeed, Jesus himself tells us in Matthew: And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. [Matthew 24:6-8] We should pray for the surviving families of those slain in today's attack. We should pray for the people of New York that God would grant them comfort in their time of loss. But above all, we must be prepared to give God's word first place in our lives. We must be prepared to take back the ground that has been surrendered. We must be willing to stand up as individual voices and demand that God's righteousness and God's holiness be re-established in these United States. We must be prepared to make good on our declarations, "In God We Trust," and "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." God himself must be first to realize the justice we decry. We must return to him and be just towards him. As for liberty, scripture speaks clearly, "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." [2 Corinthians 3:17] That is our perspective, what is yours? |
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