WHERE WAS GOD ON SEPTEMBER 11TH?

I received the following e-mail message from a co-worker this morning. Comments and flames are both welcomed.

Did you see where Billy Graham's daughter was being interviewed on the Early Show a few days ago about the September 11th terrorist attack and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?"

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said "I believe that God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?"

Let's see, I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body was found recently) complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school... the Bible that says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said, OK.

Then, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide) And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about so we said OK.

Then, someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued. (There's big difference between disciplining and touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.) And we said, OK.

Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents. And we said, OK.

Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said, OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. And agreeing with them, we said it doesn't matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.

And then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said, OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then stepped further still by making them available on the internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to their free speech.

And then the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it's just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Then there was the student who wrote "Dear God, Why didn't you save the little girl killed in her classroom? " Sincerely, Concerned Student... AND THE REPLY "Dear Concerned Student, I am not allowed in schools". Sincerely, God.

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything the Bible says. Funny how someone can say "I believe in God" but still follow Satan who, by the way, also "believes" in God.

Funny how we are quick to judge but not to be judged. Funny how you can send a thousand 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but the public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Funny how someone can be so fired up for Christ on Sunday, but be an invisible Christian the rest of the week.

Funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them.

Funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me. Are you thinking yet???

Complaining about the lack of prayer in public schools is like complaining about the lack of prayer in a brothel. In other words, I doubt that that is the main thing God cares about.

Are you an idiot? Children represent the future generation.

Little is more important to God than the how the upcoming generation is raised. Eli lost his priesthood because he refused to disciple his children in the ways of the Lord. Abraham was chosen because God knew he would command his children in the ways of the Lord (Gen 18:19).

We are in no uncertain terms saying to God, "Stay out of our lives". We may not be saying it words, but we are saying it in actions. We do it by refusing to bring our children up in the ways of the Lord. We do it by teaching our children that God is not to be intergrated into our education, and be extension our lives. We do it by setting a standard that it's OK to bring queerness out of the closet, but by all means keep God in the closet.

God wants to help us, but when we turn our back on Him, He won't. Thank God there is still a growing remnant of praying, interceeding, Bible-believing Christians still left in this land.

And so there's no confusion "God" means the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not "Allah", which could more correctly be translated "Satan".

If you read the bible you will find that God often used heathens to punish the Israelites for wandering away from Him and to make them tur to Him.

God is a compassionate God who loves each one of us dearly, but He has set the laws in stone literally, and we as a nation have abandoned those rules.

Where was God that day? He was very busy. He was clogging up traffic to prevent people from getting to work on time. He was comforting those trapped in the buildings in their final minutes. He was giving strength and courage to the men on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania the courage to attack their hijackers even though they knew that it surely meant their own deaths. He was holding up two badly damaged skyscrapers to allow many of his children to escape.

How could He allow it? The nature of man is to sin. It is unnatural to follow laws and rules. Nearly all of us chafe under those restraints. And many choose to ingnore them altogether. Have you ever heard the expression that there are no atheists in foxholes?

Just maybe, God wants us all in foxholes and turning back to Him.

God says it is never too late to come home and all are welcomed. This is the God of my church.

"I Was There"

You say you will never forget where you were when you heard the news, Sept. 11, 2001. Neither will I.

I was on the 110th floor in a smoke filled room with a man who called his wife to say "Good-Bye." I held his fingers steady as he dialed. I gave him the peace to say, "Honey, I am not going to make it, but it's okay ... I am ready to go." I was with his wife when he called as she fed breakfast to their children. I held her up as she tried to understand his words and as she realized he wasn't coming home that night.

I was in the stairwell of the 23rd floor when a woman cried out to me for help. "I have been knocking on the door of your heart for 50 years!" I said. "Of course I will show you the way home ... only believe in Me now."

I was at the base of the building with the priest ministering to the injured and devastated souls. I took him home to tend to his Flock in Heaven. He heard my voice and answered.

I was on all four of those planes, in every seat, with every prayer. I was with the crew as they were overtaken. I was in the very hearts of the believers there. Comforting and assuring them.

I was in Texas, Kansas, London. I was standing next to you when you heard the terrible news. Did you sense Me? I want you to know that I saw every face. I knew every name-though they did NOT all know Me. Some met Me for the first time on the 100th floor. Some sought Me out in their last breath. Some could hear Me calling to them through the smoke and flames, "Come to Me ... this way ... take My hand."

Some chose, for the final time, to ignore Me. But, I was there.

Most of you were not in the Towers that day. However, if you were there in that explosive moment in time, would you have reached for Me?

September 11, 2001 was not the end of the journey for you. But someday your journey will end. And I will be there for you, as well. Seek Me now while I may be found. Then, at any moment, you know you are "ready to go."

I will be in the stairwell of your final moments.

Deuteronomy 28
The Consequences of Disobedience
^*¹⁵ "But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
¹⁶"Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
….²⁴The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
²⁵"The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth.²⁶Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away.²⁷The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart.²⁹And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.
.³³A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually.³⁴So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see.
³⁵The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
³⁶"The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods--wood and stone….
⁴³"The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.⁴⁴He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
⁴⁵"Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.⁴⁶And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.
⁴⁷"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything,⁴⁸therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.
⁴⁹The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand,⁵⁰a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.…
⁵²"They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you....
⁵⁴The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind,⁵⁵so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates….
⁵⁸"If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD,
⁵⁹then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues--great and prolonged plagues--and serious and prolonged sicknesses.
⁶⁰Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you.
⁶¹Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed.
⁶²You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
⁶³And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.
⁶⁴"Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known--wood and stone.
⁶⁵And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul.
⁶⁶Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life.
⁶⁷In the morning you shall say, "Oh, that it were evening!' And at evening you shall say, "Oh, that it were morning!' because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see.

However, He is merciful:

2 Chronicles 7;14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

I don't think He stuttered.

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