Biblical Perspectives on the Twin Towers (radio 9/12/01)

Introduction: Placing Tragedy Under the Searchlight of God's Word

0:06 Irregular listeners to this broadcast know that we generally air edited versions of sermons preached by me in the ordinary pulpit ministry of Trinity Church. However, in the light of the immense tragedy of the destruction of the Twin Towers and the other simultaneous acts of wanton violence, events which have filled all of our eyes and ears and our minds, it was the decision of the leadership of this assembly that I should preach a brief message at our midweek prayer meeting, a message in which I would seek to place these horrific realities under the searchlight of the Word of God. The following message is a recording of the brief sermon preached on Wednesday evening, September 12, in the year 2001, the day after this multiple tragedy. A more expanded treatment. The next segment of this theme is available from the Trinity pulpit.

1:09 Since the devastation of the Twin Towers in Manhattan was the primary focus of the majority of the information being fed to us, I will use the words Twin Towers as a verbal shorthand for all of the acts of terrorism perpetrated on that same fateful day without ignoring or minimizing the tragedy or the present grief connected with the tragedy. The events that occurred at the Pentagon or in western Pennsylvania. And now the message entitled, Some Biblical Perspectives on the Tragedy of the Twin Towers. The images will be forever etched upon the walls of our minds.

1:55 Airplanes slamming into massive structures of steel and glass. Huge fireballs leaping upward to the sky. Buildings collapsing. Buildings collapsing.

2:05 Buildings collapsing. Like castles in the sand when dashed by a breaking wave. Screaming masses of humanity running for safety amidst choking billows of smoke and clouds of pulverized debris. Such scenes witnessed before in Hollywood's clever use of special effects film technology.

2:26 But now the scenes are all horrifying realities played out in real time with real people. And with real and eternal consequences. In the midst of the shock, the rubble, the human carnage, the incalculable devastation, many are asking, where was God in all of these things? We ask ourselves and one another, is there any word from God as we seek to find some solid ground on which to stand?

3:01 And I'm glad to answer, yes, there is solid ground. For the psalmist declared, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway.

Perspective 1: Validation of the Biblical Doctrine of Man

3:14 I beg every listener, hear me carefully as in the next 20 minutes I seek to set before you some biblical perspectives concerning the tragedy of the Twin Towers. As any one or all of these five perspectives could be amplified and expanded to a much greater length, because of the time. The time constraints of this broadcast, I can only identify the biblical perspective and direct your attention to several scriptural proofs of that particular perspective. A much more expanded exposition and scriptural demonstration of these perspectives is contained in the longer sermon on this subject, a copy of which can be obtained from the Trinity pulpit. Bringing then the tragedy of the Twin Towers to the light of the word of God. What can we say with certainty? Well, I would assert, first of all, we can assert that the tragedy of the Twin Towers is a validation of the biblical doctrine of man.

4:21 The tragedy of the Twin Towers validates the biblical doctrine of man. Children love to sing the children's hymn in our hymn book, entitled Holy Bible, Book Divine. It goes like this, Holy Bible, Book Divine, Precious treasure thou art mine, Mine to tell me whence I came, Mine to teach me what I am. Two of the most fundamental questions that any human being can ask of himself.

4:59 Where did I come from and who am I? No more fundamental questions. And you and I ask of ourselves. And our nation has been brainwashed for several generations, by and large, into accepting the answer to this question, framed not by the scriptures and by conscience, but by an anti-supernatural, mechanistic, materialistic, evolutionary, and humanist assumption of reality.

5:32 And people must ask this question, Where did I come from? And who and what am I? And what we have witnessed in the last bay, validates the Bibles' answer to those two fundamental questions. When we ask, Where did we come from?

5:54 The scriptures are clear. For in the beginning God made them. Male and female created He them. We are the creatures of God, made in the image and likeness of god.

6:07 And as such, such man is endowed with God-like capacities to design and to construct and to build buildings 110 stories high with untold miles of wires and piping and tubing and duct work, making that 110-story building into a functional servant of man. We see just in the construction of those twin towers something of the image of God in man, his creativity, his intelligence, what he is as image-bearer of the living God. He can design and construct instruments in order to guide aircraft weighing dozens, hundreds of tons, and they fly and they go to a precise place. And all of these things are...

7:06 are witness to the biblical truth that man was made in the image of God. However, when we ask how could rational human beings plot, no doubt, for months and years to take over aircraft and deliberately to plunge hundreds of people into a premature, uncertain death, how can man be so utterly heartless to his fellow man, knowing that...

7:37 fellow men have feelings and relationships and aspirations and dreams as they have? And you see, there's no answer, except the answer of the Bible. Man made in the image of God, Genesis 1 and 2, is man who fell from God, Genesis chapter 3. And he can be, in one sense, so God-like as to take our breath away, and so devil-like as to make us want to retch and to vomit.

8:06 How can man be so utterly heartless to his fellow man, knowing that... And how can this be, one and the same, human being?

8:13 The events of the past days validate the biblical doctrine of what man is. Someone who was accustomed to sitting on a park bench, this came through the anouncement... one of the announcements yesterday used to come, and before he went into work, sit on the bench and look at the Twin Towers and say, What has man wrought?

8:37 He said yesterday, he looked at the same– and says what has man validates our identity as creatures made in the image of God but fallen in our first father Adam and it should not surprise us that the first child born at the Union of Adam and Eve became a murderer because he became like his father the devil who was a murderer and a liar from the beginning those who tried to assert that we are nothing but the present product of a blind evolutionary process have no answer when they stand aghast before the wonder of the Twin Towers in their glory and stand amidst the rubble of the Twin Towers in their ruin but blessed be God we know our Bibles that tell us whence we came and teach us what we are but then secondly the tragedy of the Twin Towers is not only a validation of the biblical doctrine of man the tragedy of the Twin Towers is a manifestation of the absolute sovereignty of God the scriptures assert everywhere that God controls every atom in his universe Psalm 115 and verse 3 our God is in

Perspective 2: Manifestation of God's Absolute Sovereignty

10:01 the heavens he has done whatsoever he pleased Romans 11 36 for of him and through him and unto

10:12 whom be glory forever and ever amen Ephesians 111 God who works all things after the counsel of his own will Daniel 435 Nebuchadnezzar confesses that there is but one true and living God and that he does according to his will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand and say unto him what are you doing and in the book of Acts we have one of the most marvelous statements of this truth that God is the absolute sovereign governing all men and all their actions in the chapel period yesterday at Trinity Christian School I asked the kids I said what was the most unjust cruel heartless murderous deed ever perpetrated on the face of the earth and one of the young women answered correctly the murdering of the Son of God nothing was more cruel than the murder of the Son of God and the murder of the unconscious of the sent one was more unjust and this is not to say that it cannot be forty point forty five or fifty forty five percent more unjust and yet when the apostles gather to pray and reflect upon what happened to our lord in Jerusalem at the hands of the religious leaders and the Roman government this is what they confessed in Acts 4 and verse 27

11:35 for of a truth in this city against your holy servant Jesus whom you did anoint both heroes and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel were gathered together to an Elaine � to do whatsoever your hand and your counsel foreordained to come to pass. The murder of the Son of God was foreordained by the living God, and without in any way being tainted as the cause of sin. Almighty God governs sin and all of its actions by His own sovereign will and decree. The Scripture says it is appointed unto men once to die.

12:19 God has an appointment book, and the name of every living human being is in that book on a certain day at a certain hour by means of a God-appointed event or relationship or disease that we will meet our appointment with death. The tragedy of the unfolding death toll ought to make us all inwardly weep, and I would say, nothing that would open a wound of a tender-hearted loved one sitting here or listening to my voice on the radio. But remember, not one person died in this tragedy that in any way was not found in God's appointment book. The Scripture speaks of a time when men shall seek death and not be able to find it. This event is a manifestation of the absolute sovereignty of God. He gave breath to those who, sucking in their breath, plotted and then propagated this vile and dastardly combination of events. But Almighty God upheld them in their wickedness.

13:30 If this is not true, no Christian has any right to take comfort from Romans 8.28. And we know that all things are working together for good to those that love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. If God does not control every single thing, how can we be assured that all things are working together in any way, let alone working together for our good?

14:01 And in days to come, if the Lord spares us, we will read and we will hear reports of people who will mark this tragedy as the open door to their coming into a saving knowledge, which is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We will hear of those who, by all human reasoning, ought to have been in one of those buildings or down in the part of the pentagon, but a flat tire, an unexpected call from a sick relative, or as we've heard with someone who was once a member of this church, a 45-minute discussion with a father made an individual 45 minutes late for work, which meant they were on the road, on the way to an office in the Twin Towers when the plane hit. Dear children of God, we've read Psalm 46. Psalm 46 can be written of no other God than the God who holds the hearts of all men in His hands and governs the actions of all His creatures. Thirdly, the tragedy of the Twin Towers not only validates the biblical doctrine of man, not only is it a manifestation of the abomination, the absolute sovereignty of God, but thirdly, the tragedy of the Twin Towers is an adumbration.

Perspective 3: Adumbration of the Coming Day of the Lord

15:24 That is a prefiguration of the coming of the day of the Lord. In I Thessalonians Chapter 1 the apostle says to believers chapter 1 verse 7, you that are afflicted rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His holy angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance, of men that know not God and obey not the gospel. We studied here in our own congregation two Lord's days ago, three Lord's days ago, 2 Peter chapter 3, in which St. Peter writes in verse 10, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in which the heavens shall be melted with fervent heat and the earth and the works therein shall be consumed.

16:15 I'm sure many of you have indelibly imprinted on your minds the scene of those masses of humanity running, I think the commentator said, running south away from the smoke and the impending destruction behind them. And that image of the milling multitudes and behind them the billows of smoke like a tidal wave seeking to overtake them. Let me ask you, what would you have thought if when looking at that scene, a live scene, if those people suddenly stopped, turned around, and ran right back in the direction of the crumbling buildings?

16:57 You'd say one of two things is true. They either have all snapped and gone mad, or they saw a terror in front of them worse than the terror behind them.

17:11 And the Bible says that's exactly what will happen at the return of Christ. In Revelation chapter 6 we read, In that day kings and servants and everyone in between shall come. Cry to the rocks and to the mountains. Fall upon us.

17:29 Hide us from the face of Him that sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. They will see an angry God whose person in law they've despised and a glorified Christ who is coming in judgment. And they realize this is no mass of rubble that can merely crush my physical frame. This is the living God who can't be destroyed.

17:53 This is the living God who can't be destroyed. He can cast me into everlasting darkness. And they turn and run back and beg rocks and mountains to crush them rather than have dealings with this God. Oh, what a picture.

18:08 The crumbling of those buildings and the running of the masses is of the coming of the day of God. And it will not be just a piece of real estate in southern Manhattan or a very limited section of an important, institution in Washington called the Pentagon.

18:30 It will be the entire earth. And every rebel sinner, every unbelieving sinner, he'll beg for rocks and mountains to fall upon him rather than meet an incensed God in the day of judgment. I hasten then to touch briefly on the fourth thing that the tragedy of the Twin Towers teaches us. And it is this.

Perspective 4: Illustration of the Hypocrisy of Selective Morality

18:55 The tragedy of the Twin Towers is an illustration of the hypocrisy of selective morality. And while I realize that I'm pressing myself for time, I must say this if I'm to sleep tonight with a good conscience. It is obvious that everyone who looks upon the scene and comments upon it, politicians, newscasters, the man on the street, they are incensed. They use such words.

19:21 This was a vile deed, a cowardly deed, a dastardly deed, a heinous crime. The Bible teaches in Isaiah 5, 20 and 21 that when men cast off God's changeable moral law as a definition of right and wrong, then the prophet says they call good evil an evil good. And I've been sickened as I've seen the unfolding of the hypocrisy of selective morality. And let me explain what I mean.

19:53 What would you think of a man if he were able to engineer and I trust this does not open up unnecessary wounds in anyone hearing my voice, but I believe we need to think in this biblical category. If all those who will eventually be discovered dead as a result of these tragedies were all gathered and their bodies heaped in one place there in southern Manhattan, what would happen to the man who would dare to stand in the midst with a bullhorn and say, take no real concern and turn at this site. It was only certain men asserting their right to express their political views. It was only the right of certain men to express perhaps their religious convictions. Such a man might expect to be hung and quartered in public. But I want to take you to a more gruesome scene.

20:57 All the bodies have been removed and buried. And we are able to gather in one place every bloody fetus ripped from the womb of a mother.

21:10 Pile up 40 million of them since Roe v. Wade.

21:18 And will we a politician who says, yes, but we must defend a woman's right. Why don't they complete the sentence? A woman's right to kill her baby. Proudly saying, we stand with a woman's right.

21:41 Then stand by the corpses and defend the right of a political or religious fanatic if you dare to do so.

21:54 God have mercy.

21:58 God have mercy. God says through Paul in Romans 2, you that say a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say a man should not commit sacrilege, do you commit adultery?

22:14 Dear people, could it be that the tragedy of the Twin Towers is indeed an illustration of the hypocrisy of selective morality that will finally shape to the foundations this horrific government-protected quote, right to kill the unborn.

22:36 The unrequited blood cries to God for judgment.

Perspective 5: A Merciful Call to Repentance and Faith

22:41 May God grant that we as His people will not be deluded. Well, my time is gone. I had hoped to look at Luke 13, verses 1 to 5, where we see that two current events that were tragedies in Palestine in the days of our Lord were used as an opportunity to tell people tragedies to others are not tragedies upon innocent. Do you think these were sinners above others?

23:10 The Lord acknowledges they were sinners and their tragedy was the just judgment of God. But He says they are not sinners, but above the rest. I tell you no, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. This tragedy of the Twin Towers is a fresh publication of God's merciful call to repentance and to faith.

23:33 Oh, may God be pleased to help us as His people to think biblically. And those of you who hear my voice in this place tonight and over the radio, if you'll go to your Bible and cry to God, that He would give you light concerning your true state before Him and light and understanding of His great salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.