14 years have come and gone and it almost feels like yesterday that it happened.
On this day, September 11, 2001 – terrorists hijacked 3 planes with the intention of bringing mass destruction and horror to our nation. As a result over 3,000 lives were lost as we watched 2 planes fly directly into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and then watched in horror as the buildings collapsed with thousands inside.
We watched as people on the streets began to flee as debris and smoke filled the air around them.
We watched in horror as we actually watched live on our local news stations people leaping out of windows of the World Trade Center, choosing to fall to their deaths, rather than being crushed under the weight of the building as it collapsed to the ground.
We watched for days as firemen and rescue crews sifted through the rubble to find survivors and to find confirmation of exactly how big the death toll was going to be.
It was a nightmare.
It was a nightmare that I sat and watched from the cafeteria of my college as hundreds of students around me stared in disbelief at the TV because it almost seemed surreal.
How could this happen?
Did I know anyone in those buildings?
Did I know anyone who had family or friends in those buildings?
And not the least of which, I remember how people flooded the doors of the local churches.
For a moment it almost seemed that perhaps the United States was going to experience revival. And for about 2 or 3 weeks we did. But after that we were right back to “business as usual”.
Yes – 9/11 was a tragedy. It will forever been burned into my memory.
But the real tragedy goes deeper than the 3,000+ lives that were lost that day. It goes deeper than the city of New York being rocked to its core. It goes deeper than a nation that mourned openly and started a new war against “terrorism”. It goes much much deeper than that.
Folks – this was a wake up call from God. A warning. A call to repentance as a nation for what we have done to each other, to the unborn, to other nations. It was a call that went unanswered I’m afraid. It was a call that went ignored and those who dared to call it a “wake up call from God” were marginalized and told to shut up and let a people mourn.
So what has become of this nation since 9/11?
We have continued the murder of the unborn by the millions.
We have continued the eradication of the Christian from the public square through litigation and incarceration.
We have defiled the marriage bed further by not only accepting divorce as an everyday acceptable practice, but have legalized same sex marriage through an unconstitutional process through 5 activist judges.
We have revived the racial divide and hatred of each other that wreaks of ages past.
We have fallen hard in 14 years and our descent is not yet over. We ignored the call of God to turn back to him and spit in His face. King Solomon once wrote in Proverbs 16:18 (ESV)
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
This indeed is the case for the United States. Rather than repenting and turning back to God as our only response to a great warning as the one we saw on 9/11….we puffed up our chest….beat on it…and declared that we alone are in charge of our fate and we alone will make our own paths straight.
So this year…..this 9/11….let us not forget that yes we experienced a great tragedy those 14 years ago. But do not forget that the greatest tragedy was our response to God’s warning and call. Let us turn back to God now. He is a very patient God….but His patience is not eternal.