Governor of All: God was sovereign over September 11 and so we have hope.

Many Christians are saying about the murderous destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, "God did not cause it, but He can use it for good." There are two reasons I don't say this. One is that it goes beyond, and is contrary to, what the Bible teaches. The other is that it undermines the very hope it wants to offer.

First, it goes beyond and against the Bible. Some people simply are trying to say that God is not a sinner and does not remove human accountability and that He is compassionate. That is true—and precious beyond words. But for most people, far more is implied. Namely, God, by His very nature, cannot or would not bring about such a calamity. It's this view of God that contradicts the Bible and undercuts hope.

How God governs all events in the universe without sinning, and without removing responsibility from man, and with compassionate outcomes is mysterious! But it's what the Bible teaches. God "works all things after the counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11).

"All things" includes rolling dice (Proverbs 16:33), falling sparrows (Matthew 10:29), failing sight (Exodus 4:11), financial loss (1 Samuel 2:7), the decisions of kings (Proverbs 21:1), the sickness of children (2 Samuel 12:15), the suffering and slaughter of saints (1 Peter 4:19; Psalm 44:11), the completion of travel (James 4:15), repentance (2 Timothy 2:25), faith (Philippians 1:29), holiness (Philippians 3:12-13), spiritual growth (Hebrews 6:1-3), life and death (1 Samuel 2:6), and the crucifixion of Christ (Acts 4:27-28).

From the smallest thing to the greatest, good and evil, happy and sad, pagan and Christian, pain and pleasure—God governs all for His wise, just, and good purposes (Isaiah 46:10). Lest we miss the point, the Bible speaks most clearly to this in the most painful situations. Amos asks, "If a calamity occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it?" (Amos 3:6). After losing his 10 children, Job says, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Covered with boils, he says, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10).

Oh, yes, Satan is real and active and involved in this world of woe! In fact, Job 2:7 says, "Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." Satan struck him. But Job did not get comfort by looking at secondary causes. He got comfort by looking at the ultimate cause. "Shall we not accept adversity from God?" And the author of the book agrees when he says that Job's brothers and sisters "consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the Lord had brought on him" (Job 42:11). James underlines God's purposeful goodness in Job's misery: "You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful" (James 5:11). Job himself concludes in prayer: "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted" (Job 42:2). Yes, Satan is real, and he is terrible—and he is on a leash.

The other reason I don't say, "God did not cause the calamity, but He can use it for good," is that it undercuts the very hope it wants to create. I ask those who say this: "If you deny that God could have 'used' a million prior events to save 6,000 people from this great evil, what hope then do you have that God will 'use' this terrible event to save you (spiritually or physically) in the hour of trial?" We say we believe He can use these events for good, but deny that He could use the events of the past to hold back the evil of Sept. 11. The Bible teaches He could have restrained this evil (Genesis 20:6). "The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples" (Psalm 33:10). But it was not in His plan to do it. Let us beware. If we spare God the burden of His sovereignty, we lose our only hope.

We all are sinners. We deserve to perish. Every breath is an undeserved gift. We have one great hope: Jesus Christ died to obtain pardon and righteousness for us (Ephesians 1:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21), and God will employ His all-conquering, sovereign grace to preserve us for our inheritance (Jeremiah 32:40). We surrender this hope if we sacrifice this sovereignty.

If you take off the blinders of tradition and look at what the bible actually says, you will see that Steven yield up his spirit- any Christian can do that. He was not killed.

Neither was Paul. Do you remember what Paul said? He said that he did not know which to choose, to be here on earth or up in heaven. According to your beliefs, the choice was not his.

I believe Jesus when he said that greater works will I do, since he went to the father. What was one of the works he did? He CHOSE when to die.

There was indeed an act of God on Sep 11. It was not that two planes struck the WTC, but that rescue workers managed to get an estimated 25,000 people out of the stricken area before things started coming down.

That is the true miracle of Sep 11, and those rescue workers, most of whom lost their lives, were the angels delivering God's will.

It is clear that Satan has a lease on this earth that is about to run out - and he hates that.

Satan is the ruler. We see some spiritual parallel governments ran by demons. He sits up his thrown on earth. The bible is clear about that.

Finally, man's word will make the difference. We have the authority to overcome the devil by speaking the right words. Those words begin by crying out to God for salvation. That is why he tries so hard to trick us into the wrong words. The bible states that we only overcome him with the blood of Jesus and the WORDS of our testimony. Look at what Jesus testified in his bible study with the devil in the desert: It is written... It is written... It is written...

How powerful are our words? God's words formed the universe. Enough said.

Another Amen!

Great article.

Still, God did not cause this, but sin did. This was no calamity brought about through forces of nature or mechanical failure or "accident" but rather these attacks were sinful actions by sinners.

God did not cause sin. God allows sin to occur. God can and does use all things for His own good purposes. God is sovereign. Yes, how God governs all events in the universe without sinning, and without removing responsibility from man, and with compassionate outcomes is mysterious!

The most important thing is how we should respond. It is good to see this as a wake up call for us as individuals and as a nation. As a nation we should repent of killing the unborn, the homosexual culture, violence in the streets, indecent television, immoral entertainment, etc. But we should not, as individuals, stick our fingers in anyone elses face, be they abortionists, homosexuals, etc., and say "this is your fault!" Unless each one of us repents of our own sins, each one of us will also perish.

If anyone wants to find sin, start by looking in the mirror. Let us all, each one of us, use this terrible attack that God chose not to prevent as a call to repent and turn to Him. Then, He will bless us as individuals and as a nation.

While an ardent opponent of Alan Keyes, I have to give you a hearty Huzzah for your response. In Luke 13, Jesus said that those that died in the tower of Siloam did not die because they were more wicked than others, but he went on to say we ought to repent lest we likewise perish. This ought to be a time of deep humiliation, repentance and confession unto God. As a nation, we have shed innocent blood. We have done wickedly. we deserve God's wrath and judgement for forsaking Him.

At this time of great sorrow, we should look in the mirror and reflect on the sin that rests in our flesh and the flesh of all men that precipitates such evil and hatred.

As a Calvinist, I know that God is in complete control of everything, yet is not the author of sin. He uses sinful men for his divine purposes. He can never be frustrated in His purpose. And that the same God who brought the victims into this world, oversaw every aspect of there passing to the next. That does not mean that God directly caused their death. It does mean that God was not caught asleep at the wheel. May He give us grace to trust in Him and lean not on our own understanding.

Thanks for including me in this post.

I have only recently heard of John Piper. I listened to Pilgrim Radio from Carson City Nevada while on vacation. Their format includes reading books. I had the pleasure of hearing a portion of one of Piper's books - the life of John Bunyan.

Christians are monotheistic. He, the one God, is ultimately responsible for everything, but only in the sense that it is His unchangeable plan that is in effect. For the unregenerate man that is a hard, nay impossible, doctrine. So for the unregenerate man who thinks he might want to believe in "god" if "god" meets certain requirements, it is a common practice to get "god" off the hook for evil by ascribing it to man's free will. Well God, the one God, is already off the hook for evil but not because man can do as he pleases (i.e. free will). God is off the hook because man really is guilty. That is the Christian belief. Take it or leave it.

The unregenerate man "leaves it" until God, purely of His own free will, by grace, causes man to believe.

By the way it is highly unlikely that man senses (eye, ear, nose, touch, etc) any external force to believe. Man merely senses a drastic soul-saving change in his "wants". But when all is said and done the saved-soul can look back in time and realize that it was God, not free will after all, that "did it".

The Holy Scriptures are replete with this doctrine.

There is much I could say, but I will leave it at this- you haven't even begun to see the revival, and it will not end until Jesus takes the church off the earth. Until then, the church will grow from one degree of glory to another. We are talking the Shekina Glory of God- the manifest presence of the Glory of God.

Well, I don't use words like Shekina. I'm guessing that this reference is more Hebrew Roots and/or charismatic talk. Leaving that aside, I will simply say that the Bible teaches there will come a great falling away from the true and simple faith in Christ, that false teachers will abound, that Christians will be killed by their so-called brethren, that men will not follow sound doctrine but will instead pursue religious novelty which they will substitue for a simple and true faith in Christ and that in the end they will pursue their false religion to the ecumenical religion of the Antichrist.

Doesn't sound much like a revival to me.

Doesn't sound much like a revival to me.

I have always wondered about that GW..I have heard and read so much on the idea of "end time" revival.

It completely conflicts with the "great falling away"

It will be hard times...greggy believes that he/she will suffer no harm..scripture doesnt reinforce that ..when things get hard I do believe there will be a "falling away"......

I have always wondered about that GW..I have heard and read so much on the idea of "end time" revival.

It completely conflicts with the "great falling away"

It doesn't look like a great revival under the present circumstances (up to the time of the Rapture). However, I think the great revival comes in when one is in the Tribulation period. That's when all the Gospel will be preached to the world. And that's when there will be a great revival, right in the midst of all God's judgements and Satan's attempt to control the world -- along with those 144,000 Jewish evangelists, going all over the world (to say nothing of angels flying in the heavens proclaiming God's word and telling the world not to take the "mark").

There are many in this world who have never heard the Gospel -- who will hear it at this time. There's where you'll see the great revival. The Christians will see it after having been removed from this world and being with Christ.

Christ says that the gospel will be preached to the whole world and then the end will come. The "end of what?" Well, the end of the age -- that's what. When does that happen? Well, not until Christ returns to the earth to set up His Kingdom (not at the time He returns for the church). It's not the "end of the age", yet, at that time.

sola gracia, rnmomof7

Amen!! What more can you say?

1 Posted on 09/27/2001 20:14:39 PDT by sola gracia

I would offer : Romans 8:28-36 NIV

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Romans 8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

XeniaSt

I have been out of town a couple of days, and you have probably already forgotten what led to this, but I still state that you are presumptuous. Matthew 21 no where states that Israel is restored, whether in 1948 or in 1967. Your argument is the same as those who insisted that Jesus had to come back prior to 1988. No man knows the day or hour, and to insist that a vague reference to a fig tree is the restoration of Israel is tenuous at best.

Secondly, Job was not referring to Satan in Job 13:15a. If you read the passage, you will see that he is referring to God Almighty.

Heavens to betsy, you really ought to read Scripture before you comment on it.

You have still lost the point of Job 13:15. Job specifically states (my paraphrase): "Even if He (God) kills me, I will still hope in Him (God)". What Job knew, and what you seem to have difficulty understanding, if the fact that God controls life and death, and all events in between. He does not start a life and then sit back and allow the devil to choose when to end that life. One will not die a millisecond before the time that God has appointed, at the same time one will not live a millisecond after that divine appointment. The length and breadth of your life has already been determined, and it wasn't the devil who did the determining.

As far as Matthew 21 is concerned, you were the one who brought that passage up in your #65. I was only stating that you have to read a considerable amount into Jesus' words to conclude that He was talking about the restoration of Israel, whether 1948 or 1967. You still don't know when He will return.

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Governor of all

God was sovereign over Sept. 11, and so we have hope