Posted on 09/30/2001 12:34:47 AM PDT by Mr. Mulliner
Judgment DayGod promised that calamity would follow disobedience. So why are we quick to dismiss it as a reason for the September 11 attacks?
By Frederica Mathewes-Green | posted 9/25/01On the day after the tragedy I drove through Washington, surprised to find it uncongested and tranquil. I drove past the battered Pentagon, where cars crept along the interstate at a few miles an hour as people craned their necks to see and comprehend our national wound. A few miles further, down among the suburban office towers, is a tiny old white clapboard church.
I stepped inside the cool interior, which was dimly lit and covered on walls and ceiling with paintings of Christ and the Apostles, of biblical figures and heroes from long ago. I took a seat to wait for my spiritual father and looked around. I saw faces of men and women who had known suffering, much more severe than what I had ever experienced, even as rocked as I felt just then. They stood serene around the walls, many holding symbols of victory.
Father George Calciu came out from beside the altar and greeted me. He is a small, resilient man, unusually vigorous for his 76 years. His hair and beard are thick and white, and his face is permanently creased with the marks of indomitable good cheer. Cheerfulness is an unlikely attribute, given his story. In his native Romania Fr. George challenged the communist authorities repeatedly and forcefully, with a courage that defied self-preservation. He was confined in brutal prisons, subjected to brainwashing, and formed a lifelong friendship with a fellow prisoner, Richard Wurmbrand, author of Tortured for Christ.
Today the first thing he asked me was, "Why do you think that happened yesterday?"
I was stumped for a minute. I hadn't thought of exactly that question. I said, "I don't know."
Fr. George said, "It was the punishment of God."
Well, there's something I hadn't thought of. Though I wondered why I hadn't; I've just finished an intensive study of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and knew that the Jews have always seen even that brutal and sacrilegious tragedy as divine retribution for their sins. In fact, that seems to be the Old Testament pattern; anytime Israel suffered a military defeat, they responded with repentance. It didn't replace other strategic responses, but was an indispensable companion.
This isn't just an Old Testament phenomenon. When people told Jesus that Pilate had killed worshippers at the Temple, he responded, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3). There seems to be a biblical pattern here: national suffering should bring about repentance.
I have often wondered what might return our sick culture to health. I've sometimes felt overwhelmed at the ugliness of America's spiritual condition, at 40 million children killed by abortion, at the promotion world-wide of sexual promiscuity and materialism, the contempt of God, the spreading infection of American culture.
I've often wondered what might turn us around. Everything moves in cycles, and some sick cultures do return to health; it can happen in a generation. But I have never heard of a historical example that wasn't inaugurated by catastrophe. Healing is the fruit of repentance, and repentance comes in the wake of suffering. There aren't many examples of spontaneous remission from this sort of illness.
Fr. George told me that the night before he had opened his Bible and it had fallen to Psalm 127. He read me the first verse: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." How, he asked me, could the hijackers have overcome such a high level of security unless the Lord somehow permitted it?
He then turned to Daniel 9:12-14.
He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity; for under the whole heaven there has not been done the like of what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and giving heed to thy truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteousness in all the works which he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.Fr. George went on to say that the concepts of repentance and humility are mostly absent in America, and it doesn't seem likely that we'll understand the lesson. When he first came to the U.S. he would sometimes speak of the sins he committed in prison, and people would say, "How could you commit sins? You were in prison." He smiled at this. "Of course you still sin," he said. "You sin in your thoughts."
But Americans, he says, are very proud, and are used to being powerful, and the concepts of repentance and humility are not commonly expressed even among conservative Christians. Over the years I have come to see how these concepts are the very core of the Gospels; they were Jesus' most consistent message.
But we tend to skip over them in our rush to reassure ourselves that God loves us. He does, of course, but you don't really know how much he loves you until you dare to repent. Until you see how much God had to forgive in you, you can't really see the height of his love. Not many churches where that is preached today, conservative or liberal.
Thus it won't do much good for us to spray on some superficial piety, while not taking it to deep, self-challenging levels. Fr. George said that he was very moved when he saw the Congressmen singing "God Bless America." Then he began to think, in how many of their votes and actions do these same men and women work to cast away the blessing of God?
The thought occurred to me that what the song could really mean is, "God, bless the things we already do; bless the things we have decided to do." A friend of mine says the local strip club has changed its sign to read "God Bless America," which just about sums up the problem.
This gave me a lot to think about. For years I've been thinking that the main thing America needed to do is to be humble and repent. Here comes a blow that looks a lot like things God has done in the past to kindle that response, the kind of suffering that had Israel weeping in sackcloth.
But no one, including Christians, is likely to draw such conclusions. Instead, we'll focus on how much we have been wronged, and smite our adversaries by our own considerable earthly power, and feel satisfied at videotape of young Arab men frying to death in Jeeps. If Fr. George is right, if "repent" is indeed God's message, I'm afraid we'll need more than one lesson to get it.Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christianity Today magazine.
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"Not that I'm sure it matters to any of you, but I am ashamed of you all nontheless!"
I understand your frustration Stingray...believe me I do.However I don't believe you really meant the above...not for one minute.Their words maybe...but not them.
"This is how ye shall know ye are my disciples,if you love the brethren"
It should matter to them what you think...and I hope they listen to what you are saying.
When we move away from God...we move towards the camp of the enemy.There are no bystanders in this.
grace and peace to you friend.
God bless all and God bless America.
Unfortunately, there are far too many Christians who believe our gospel comes from the pages of the Old Testament, and who have erased "Israel" there and replaced every instance with the word "America." It's ignorance, at best, and hubris, at worst.
These same people are no different than those Paul warned us about in Galatians.
I'm sure I will have to answer for many wrongs I've done, but I hope I will never have to answer for slander against God like this. It would be blasphemous were it not so laughable.
But I will try to chill, and thank you for you reason and good sense.
Later...
Thank you for a most timely post. Now that the US is creating some kind of "homeland defense" tsar, he could do a lot worse than put those words right on his office door.
Incidentally, the same text was used by Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, in his Oratio contra Turcos.
I don't think anyone here has ever alleged that the terrorist attack is intended to serve any sort of redemptive purpose. You seemed to think that I or others thought so. You've pointed out a very important point about Jesus taking the full wrath of God so that God's wrath against man's sin has been satisfied on the cross.
When we make references to the Old Testament we are making references to God's character, not to dispensations. I would say that Isaiah 45:7 is to be understood to be speaking about God's character and relationship to the world, not just toward Israel in a specific dispensation. That verse says,
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity an create disaster, I, the LORD, do all these things.That's NIV and I apology if you don't like that translation cuz it's all I got on the computer at the moment. The KJV, I recall, says, "good and evil" for prosperity and disaster. But the point is that God is saying that is very difficult for us to understand or accept. He is declaring His sovereignty and so in some case He does not want us to look past Him when we look for causes for disaster. Not that He's capricious or enjoys to toy with human lives. But He has a purpose in all things and is involved in even the worst disasters in the sense that He is working out His overall purposes and we need to find out what they are.
Where does repentance come in? Repentance is coming to the throne of grace. It's our way of making sure that we don't miss what God is saying and doing in all sorts of otherwise unexplainable events. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Repentance is simply an act of humility that turns our hearts from everything else and directs them toward God. Without repentance, it is not possible, I believe, to appropriate God's grace for the horrendous situation our nation is now facing.
May I say one more thing, Stingray? It's not easy on any of us to go through this tragedy. We don't delight in this by pointing out blame. I'm not blaming Bill Clinton, the Democrats, the victims of the attacks, or anyone else in particular. We all are responsible to live our lives according to the light that we are given. For those who are without Christ, I don't expect them to live saintly lives. If anything, I feel that the church in America needs to repent of attitudes that have actually stayed the hand of God at a time when America sorely needed a revival. Peter said that "it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" Where does that fit into your dispensationalism, I'd like to know.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, in the name of your Son Jesus we ask you to thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.
Bump
The "LIGHT" is all encompassing and cannot be completely comprehended by us; IT/HE is not responsible for the attacks on 09/11. Those in the Twin Towers (in my opinion) are not responsible but it is rather those "evil-doers" that orchestrated and planned the attacks who are SOLELY responsible.
Man's inhumanity to man is the root of all evil and the opposite of "love your neighbor as yourself," as preached in both the New and Old Testaments. (BTW, this same short-circuit in the universe was responsible for the destruction of both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.)
These crazies who caused this need to be identified, sequestered and permanently removed from society (however that can be accomplished) so they're never able to do it again.
Since we're on the same page, "let us take care of the terrorists." In the immortal words of Brave Beamer on board Flight 93, "Let's roll!"
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