Beginning on September 11, 2001 and ever since we have
heard what happened on that day being called 'Attack on America'. Correct. It
was.
A phrase that many people have used to describe the
meaning of the horrible incidents on that day is 'A Wake Up Call'. What happened
on that day got many people's attention. Through tears, agony, horror, shock
many people's minds were torn open. Our thoughts were drawn by the event and
will be in our minds for who knows how long. But what truth did it bring to our
attention? Or, to phrase the question differently, 'Now that our attention has
been gotten, what should our thought be focused upon?' Is there a truth or
emergency that we are to wake up to?
'A wake up call'? Yes. But to what? The events of that
day certainly alerted everyone in America and much of the world to the fact that
the social environment we live in has changed. It certainly alerted a lot of
people to the fact that there is more physical danger about in this world than
we knew. In America our bubble of the smooth life, the safe life, has been
burst.
What happened told us in unmistakable language that the
world we live in is not the same as it used to be. Technology has made it
possible for individuals or groups of individuals to give expression to the sin
that is in their minds and hearts. We have seen what tremendous suffering and
death expressed sin can cause. For those placed in authority for the purpose of
protecting its citizens (governments) it was a wake up call that revealed a
grave new threat to their citizens. For those whose responsibility it is to try
to protect its citizens in this world this display of evil was a horrible sign
of the times. But their actions can only have an effect on life in
this world.
But the message that the world has changed, the message
that the world is different from what we grew up in is not the most important
message. The message that there is more physical danger at large in the world
than we knew is not the most important message.
While it is true that the world we live in (while on
earth) has changed in certain ways, the basic problem of mankind has not. And it
is because of this fact that the most important message of the 'event' of
September 11th is not concerned with what has changed but with what has not
changed.
What is it that has not changed? What is the unchanging
and irrefutable truth that the event of September 11th conveyed in images of a
sudden and enormous loss of life: the transitoriness or fleeting character of
life in this world--'here one moment, gone the next.' Also we saw that the evil
in human hearts can wreak enormous devastation and cause enormous suffering.
What happened on that date only revealed the truth that the evil really is
there in the heart of men (as the Bible has been saying for centuries). Human
beings have not changed. The basic problem is still there for citizens of this
world. All secular history as well as God's revelation, the Bible, has shown
that repeatedly. What is different today is that the advance in science and
technology has made available (provided) to individuals and groups of
individuals the means by which what has been in the heart of men all along can
now be shown to the world by deeds of massive death and destruction.
While the particular eruption of the evil in the hearts of men that we witnessed with such horror took an extreme form, that the sin in men's hearts shows up in behavior is not unique. That there is evil in the heart of people should come as no surprise to Christians. The Bible has taught that truth both by precept and by example for centuries. In the Bible the social manifestation of that truth began with Cain who murdered his brother. This occurred in the first generation after Adam. (Genesis 4:1-8). The Bible states very clearly that sin, like a deadly disease, dominates in this world. (Galatians 3:22) What God knows to be sin or behavior that is unholy takes many forms.
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21; Matthew 15:19)Don't think for a moment that what God knows to be sin
is just in the heart of terrorists or criminals or in obviously 'bad' people or
even in 'other' people (Matthew 7:3; Romans 3:9-19) Sin lurks in every
heart like a congenital infection. Sin is pervasive. It is everywhere. Think of
the divorce rate or the increasing setting aside of marriage altogether. The
smallest community on earth which consists of only two people--a man and a
woman--a community with a lot of built-in self-gratification often breaks apart.
Why? Because of what is in the hearts of individuals. Selfishness and the desire
further one's own interest regardless of the cost to others shows how deep sin
goes. Think of the myriad of other social manifestations of strife between
individuals, between governments, between nations, between.... What has the
history of civilization been a record of? What devastation the expression of sin
has caused throughout the world. We have seen with our eyes a horrible example
of what devastation an eruption of sin can cause. What we have seen in New York
and Washington is but one example. That sin runs deep is one of the
'facts of life' that the Bible has been declaring for centuries.
The world or environment in which we live has changed.
Some people have expressed the idea that the event of September 11th was a call
to put out more effort to make the world a better place to live in while God
leaves us here. But it is not the 'quality' of the environment in which we live
that is the basic problem. What is in the heart is. Even when men (Adam and Eve)
were in the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden that did not deter them
from behaving as if God's declarations regarding the consequences of setting
aside his commandment were not true. That did not deter them from disobeying God
and pursuing what they desired in the way they saw fit. Since then sin has been
the problem. It was the infection of sin in the heart that brought forth the
action of God to send his Son into the world. It was the need to overcome the
controlling the power of sin in the descendants of Adam and Eve that required
the substitutionary death of Christ in the first place (Romans 8:3). The purpose
or goal of Christ's sacrificial death was not to change the environment, to make
this world a better place to live in but to redeem or deliver individual people
from the power and penalty of sin. The same act of deliverance by God is
referred to in the Bible as the calling of people out of this
sin-dominated world (1 Peter 2:9) or as rescuing us 'from the dominion of
darkness' and bringing us 'into the kingdom of the Son' (Colossians 1:13).
To call people out of this world, that is what Christ did. "
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I [Jesus] have chosen you out of the world." (John 15:19; see also John 17:14-16) "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." (Philippians 3:20) But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9)Everybody whom God has not called out of darkness, who has not been born again of God before they die--even as they did in New York and Washington--is under the power sin. The bible says so. (Galatians 3:22) And everybody who remains under the control of sin is destined for an eternity of paying the price for doing so. That is what we need to think about and live accordingly.
Becoming aware that the world or environment that we
live in while on earth has changed and become more dangerous is in comparison a
passing irrelevancy. It concerns only life on earth prior to physical death.
On September 11th the awful demonstration of how easily and quickly any individual's life on earth can come to an end grabbed more people's attention than anything I have ever seen. No one knows the number of his days or the hour of his death. The Bible says so. 'Here today, gone tomorrow'. But to have that truth displayed is such a fashion will leave an indelible impression of that truth. Who can forget the horrible images that demonstrated that truth? That is the message. Learn from it. What does the Bible say?--Call upon the Lord, or, to use a more accurate expression--believe upon the Lord (Jesus the Christ) while you still have life and breath. (Acts 16:31) Because when you are dead your opportunity is over and you know your destiny has become fixed.
And the eternity which Christianity knows of is so much
'longer' than the fleeting moment we spend on earth. The issue of where a person
will spend all his time after death is not one to be put off. Seeing how
suddenly a person's life on earth can end reminds us that this issue is urgent.
What a wake up call to the urgency of evangelism!
The horrible event of September 11th didn't change the world or indicate that the human beings in it had changed. But it did open many people up to thinking about the basic, never-changing issues of life and death, even eternal life and eternal 'death' issues. What the terrible events of September 11th gave a glimpse of was the terribleness of sin--which is part of the message of Christianity. What the author of the Bible (the Creator God) sets forth has been shown to be true and not just a quaint legend or a widely shared flight of imagination or an elementary school scribble. Maybe now is the time when many people may be more prone to think that if the Bible is right about the sin in human hearts perhaps it is also right in what it says about eternal life and eternal punishment. 'Here today, gone tomorrow'. What a wake up call to think about life and death issues! Am I ready for eternity?
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