Text: 2 Kings 25:1-30, Title: On the 7th Day of the 5th Month, Date/Place: NRBC, 9/11/11, AM
A. Opening illustration: you probably remember where you were on Sept 11 about 9:00…
B. Background to passage: The day was August 24, 585 BC. The siege of Jerusalem had been ongoing for about 2 years. Moderate fighting had been going on with Nebuchadnezzar for almost 20 years. Gone were the glory days of David’s far reaching empire, and Solomon’s glorious temple and peace in the land. The city had run out of food about a month before. Mothers were boiling their children, starvation was rampant, sickness and death were hourly occurrences. Then it happened: after watching the army flee by night (only to be captured on the plains of Jericho, the armies of Babylon overwhelmed the city, killing thousands, burning homes, the palace, and the temple. Taking anything of value, and deporting anyone of importance that they didn’t kill. They brought the king’s (Zedekiah) sons, and executed them before his eyes, then plucked them out. They took a host of nobles and leaders from Israel and executed them as a sign. Then began a forced march back to Babylon for those remaining, leaving only a few of the poorest to tend the vineyards that they may be able to get some wine from them as a tribute.
C. Moses had foretold, the prophets had preached, the northern kingdom of Israel had been taken captive over 100 years previous. After countless warnings, it actually came to pass. The disbelief in the hearts of Israel as they watched the Temple burn down would have arisen very similar to ours as we watched the World Trade Center towers burn and finally implode. It was a defining point in Israel’s history. Nothing was ever the same. For half a millennium later, every word written, every theological, political, cultural change or idea was a reflection of some level on the fall of Jerusalem. No monarchy, no temple, no sacrifices for sins, no government, no freedom, everything destroyed. August 24th changed everything.
D. And you know that the questions were much the same: Where is God? Why did He let this happen? What do we make of this? How do we explain this to our children? What now…? The Israelites used many things to pass along significant events in their history, so that it would not be forgotten. Life is a designed schoolmaster to teach us things, and we should remember the lessons and pass them on.
E. Main thought: Reflections on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11
A. Some things change
1. Many things are different now: one person said that we’ve lost a lot of freedom and spent a lot of money as a result. Another said we have more debt and less president. Another said that you have to wait in lines longer at airports. But however you view it, life in America is different after this event. Here are a couple of notable ways: 1) Innocence has been lost to a degree. Many Americans did not know what the word “jihad” meant. We had little knowledge of Islam, and just figured it was for another part of the world. Probably didn’t know any, or many Muslims here in GA. Afterwards, you knew exactly who they were. 2) Secondly, our bulletproof confidence is no longer as pronounced. After 9/11 you watched people a little more carefully; you were a little concerned when you stepped on a plane; you looked in your letters for white powder. Suspicion was at a high level. You didn’t know if you could fully trust that the security that we always trusted would really find the bomb or the terrorist.
2. For some things there was only a brief change. Church attendance spiked for about 6 weeks, and people were looking for something in light of their newly realized vulnerability and the hint of conviction they felt when they thought about how they have treated God. Also God became a song we sing as a nation. But it was more of the nebulous, benevolent grandfather god of Oprah, with no standards or truth, just love and acceptance for everybody. And for weeks God Bless America rang out from everywhere, even replacing Take Me Out to the Ballgame for the 7th inning stretch. Lee Greenwood made some money as we had revival on God Bless the USA.
3. Illustration:
4. Change is one of the only constant things in the created world. Tragedy, sickness, loss, death, heartbreak, etc. cause immense change in our lives. Many of you have defining events of shock or pain that shape everything following that. And there is no going back to “the good ol’ days.”
B. Some stay the same
5. God never changes. He is still sovereign. He is still good. He still loves. He still exercises control over every aspect of creation. He is still our only hope and stay. He is still our greatest and only full and true sufficiency.
6. Some things about men stay the same. We are still spiritually broken. We still live life without much urgency, as though we will have time on our hands. We still pretend death is a lifetime away, when it could be just around the bend. We still want to know WHY?
7. Illustration: “if we remove a sovereign God from before a tragedy to protect Him from accusation, then we don’t have a sovereign God to offering them after a tragedy.”
8. This is the hardest part of any tragedy is figuring out how God could be sovereign and good at the same time. How could he allow such a thing to happen? And a free will defense doesn’t really solve the problem. God has a mysterious plan that is worked completely upon His will. And even though we can’t fathom why this was part of it, doesn’t mean this is no reason. No tragedy, in fact, no event in life is without meaning. And part of the message to all of us is that we all should have been in the towers. Misplaced locus of amazement. Believing what the bible says is sometimes all we have, but that is enough. We know that God still loves us and holds us up.
9. After about 6 weeks, everything in the church world kinda slowed down. And to the amazement of most pastors, most people went back to business as usual. We went back to living for things of today, very little thought about eternity than we did before. We are people of short memory. And we are a broken people. Our sin nature dominates our lives. And we still need a Savior. Each one of us breathes God ignoring air, and have trampled the most glorious, most valuable reality in the entire universe, and are in need of a Savior.
A. Closing illustration: so remember the testimony of 9/11, and tell your children and grandchildren about the pain and loss; tell them about the 1100 people who were never found; tell them about the magnitude of the day; tell them about the heroism of ordinary people who rushed into burning buildings and piles of rubble and charged cockpits; tell them of the children who lost parents and the thousands of others who lost loved ones; tell them of the compassion and love demonstrated by strangers; tell them the stories of how God spared some and allowed some to pass; remind them that there are hundreds of untold stories of God’s working through this tragedy; tell them about the American spirit that arose from a deeply divided nation and caused us to stand in unity once again; and then point them to Jesus, who is the center of everything in the universe for comfort, peace, salvation, and hope for the future of our nation, and our world!
B. At the end of the day you have a country with much to deal with and remember, and you have tens of thousands of people who have lost love ones that they will never for get. And God is radically committed to sparing us pain, but not necessarily in this life now. But God still is our only hope. He is the only sure hope.
C. So how shall we respond today? 1) Repent, 2) Trust, 3) Live in light of the vapor.
D. God has given some of you a few more days out from under the tower to live? God has exercised mercy for a purpose, and some of you need to get saved
E. Some of us need to get real with lost of things in life.
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
