In The Shadows Of 9/11/01

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