Article

Some Words of Wisdom for 9/11

UM Voice Speaking Out For A Return To Biblical Authority http://www.dueber.org/umvoice
Date: September 11, 2003

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe - and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?”

- James 2:18-20

SOME WORDS OF WISDOM...

"He does not believe, that does not live according to his belief."

- Thomas Fuller, essentially paraphrasing “Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

"...[T]oday's Americans would probably not follow brave state leaders to a constitutional showdown anyway. They are enslaved by their own gullibility. They are accustomed to the heavy hand of their federal masters and ignorantly accept their authority as constitutional or divine. They will complain for a while, then adapt to the new chains placed around their necks. What a pity. The Alabama case is such a wonderful opportunity to set things right."
- Douglas Smith

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
- John F. Kennedy

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
- Thomas Paine

On this, the second anniversary of Sept. 11, it is instructive to reflect for a few moments on the spiritual state of the nation. And as James might point out, the actions of our nation speak much more loudly than our words. So while we profess a belief in God with our lips, and invoke His Blessing on a regular basis, consider our national track record over the past two years:

• Legalization of sodomy by the Supreme Court
• Judicial rulings banning “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance
• “Blackballing” of judicial nominees because of their personal convictions against the practice of abortion. (Update: Miguel Estrada – whose vote has been held up since before Sept 11 two years ago – formally withdrew his nomination this week.)
• Federal ruling against Judge Roy Moore’s display of the Ten Commandments
• Gay “civil unions” are a Gray Davis signature away from becoming a reality in California. This will make them the second state in the union to recognize a form of gay marriage (behind Vermont). The new laws will allow “partners” to seek child support and alimony in the case of “divorce”.
• Refusal by Congress to ban human cloning outright
• Confirmation of openly gay bishop by the Episcopalians
• And of course, the blasphemy and denial of essential Christian doctrine propagated by our own Joseph Sprague

But wait! There’s more!

• A recent US Census Report indicates that the number of unmarried couples living together rose sharply over the 10 year period from 1990 to 2000, rising from 3.2 million couples in 1990 to 5.5 million in 2000
• Incoming Freshmen at the University of Michigan can sign up for a course called "How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation."
• Freshmen at the University of North Carolina are required to take a course on the Koran
• A Kentucky couple has filed a “wrongful life” suit in the case of their child who was born with severe birth defects, arguing that their doctors should have advised them to abort. Hitler would’ve been proud of this one! (This one actually went the right way, as the Kentucky Supreme Court ultimately threw the case out)
• “Jane Roe” of Roe vs. Wade and and “Jane Doe” of Doe vs. Bolton (the two landmark cases that established abortion as a right in this country) filed to have their cases overturned. While this is great news, the sad thing is that the mainstream news media has largely squelched this story.

I summarize this “Wall of Shame” not to discourage, but to strengthen our collective resolve to stand firm! Now more than ever we need to stand for Truth in our nation, to be salt and light in a culture that continues to drift further away from God. It’s time for the Church to break free from the forces that would keep us quiet, irrelevant, and powerless. For too long, we have allowed the Church to be held hostage by a culture that is desperate to silence the true message of the Gospel, and to be undermined from within by politically-correct ecclesiastical hierarchies who champion not God's laws, but man's. The result has been the preceding litany, the “Wall of Shame”.

It should make us take pause, when we review the record and the consider the words of Isaiah:

“Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.” (Isaiah 59:1-4)

Fortunately, there are those like Judge Roy Moore who are still calling for justice. And there are those like a group of Episcopalians who are pleading for truth by actively withholding their “apportionments” to the Episcopal denomination. (See http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0027665.cfm\, and http://www.CommunionParishes.org for details)

There is still a faithful remnant! But instead of reassuring ourselves that all is not yet lost – as we are so apt to do - Christians need to realize that this isn’t someone else’s fight. We are all called to witness to the Truth, and as followers of Christ we cannot just sit back and watch from the sidelines. We must be willing to “show our faith by our actions”, to stand against all forms of evil, perversity, and injustice, and by our example encourage others to do the same: not as arbiters of the Truth, but as messengers.

Sept. 11th, 2001 should've been a wake-up call for all Americans, but most of all for American Christians. What an opportunity to witness to unbelievers who were searching for answers! But even within four months of that fateful day, church attendance was back to "normal" levels. Why? Seekers came and found our practice of religion to be lacking much real substance. While they came looking for answers, what they found instead was a brand of religion that is mostly acceptable to the culture, but largely devoid of the power of the Holy Spirit. That has to change, and can only come through personal repentance that allows the Spirit to move and thereby usher in revival.

Sept. 11 should have been the thing that grabbed our attention, drew us closer to God, and brought us to that deep, lasting, repentance that we need so desperately. Unfortunately, it proved to be more like a passing fad, and when the threat dissipated, we collectively hit the snooze bar, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Business as usual. What will it take to rouse us from our slumber? What will the alarm sound like next time? And how many more chances do we think we'll get?

May God continue to Bless America, and draw us to Himself.

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