7 Questions Related to September 11th

Would you turn with me to First Timothy?

Chapter two, First Timothy, Chapter Two.

First Timothy chapter two.

Paul's writing to a pastor, Timothy, his spiritual son in the faith, and he's talking about how we ought to conduct ourselves when we come together to worship.

That's what chapter two is about.

It's about the household of God.

And here's what he says in verse one.

First Timothy chapter two, verse one.

I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men, the testimony given in its proper time.

And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle.

I am telling the truth, I'm not lying, and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.

I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer without anger or disputing.

The first thing the church is called to do, the Apostle Paul says, when we gather together, is to pray and to pray especially for those in authority.

So why don't we just do that now?

Just take a moment.

I'll lead you, and we'll just pray for wisdom for all those in authority now.

Lord, thank you for the leadership that you have placed over this country.

We thank you for your wisdom.

We had no idea how they would be needed or why they would be needed or why these particular men and women should be in this place.

We thank you for your wisdom that foreordained ahead of time the leadership that we have.

And now we pray for President Bush.

As we thank you for him, we ask that you would grant to him the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Jesus.

Thank you that he knows you and that he's not ashamed to say that, and he's not ashamed to seek your face in this time.

Give him the wisdom that he needs to lead our country now.

And not only President Bush, but those in the Congress, those in the military.

Let the wisdom which is from above come down upon them.

Give them extraordinary guidance beyond their intelligence, beyond their instincts now.

Lord, would you do that for our governors, and would you do that for the mayors of our city?

And would you do that also for the heads of other nations?

Those who are entering into an alliance with us now, those who face incredible pressure because of that, would you give them wisdom?

And Lord, even to those nations that oppose us, and even to those nations that support terrorism and harbor the terrorists, would you give extraordinary wisdom to the leaders of those nations?

Break down the deception around them, break down the power of pride around them, and let them see that the course of terrorism is doomed to a final frustration and pain for all who are involved in it.

And now for us this morning, we pray with David, we pray with the psalmist of old.

Amen.

What happened to us on September 8th, those planes hitting those buildings has raised all sorts of questions.

I hear them on TV, I hear them when I talk to people, I get phone calls about them.

I think this is one of the greatest opportunities that we've had in the last 30 or 40 years to see the kingdom of God advance in a major way.

People are looking to the church for answers.

They're looking for spiritual answers to what's happened.

And we need to be able to give those answers.

We also need to be able to have some sort of feeling or guidance about what's coming, what these things mean and what's coming.

This is a time, I believe, for the church to lead, for the church not to fall in line with secular voices.

I want to address seven questions about September 11th that I hear everywhere I go, and that the church ought to be able to have an answer for.

The first question is I heard it first in this form, why did God do this?

Why did God do this to us?

And there's another form that says, Did God do this to us?

We ought to be able to answer that.

The answer is unequivocal.

No, God did not do this.

Not for a second.

The Arab people did not do this.

We need to know that, and we need to say that.

Some angry, hateful men, energized by the devil, did this to us.

Yes, it's true, God could have stopped it.

But if we want to live in a world where God stops all of us from hurting one another, then we'd have to live in a world where there's no true choice.

In a world where there's no true choice or no true freedom is a world where there can be no true love.

If my only choice is to be your friend, what would that friendship mean?

Not very much, would it?

The people who did this to us, the terrorists who murdered thousands of innocent people on September 11th, they want to live in a world where there are no choices.

They want to live in a world where a young girl can't go to school and learn how to read or write.

They want to live in a world where all men have to have beards and they have to have them a certain length.

They want to live in a world where if you're a woman and you're walking on the street and your veil accidentally slips off, you get beaten publicly with rods in the street.

And they want to live in a world where it's considered a duty to kill those with whom you disagree.

Now that is not God's world, that's the devil's world.

It's not the world the Lord is offering us.

The Lord is offering us a world where we even have the freedom to say no to him, where we have the freedom to reject his love.

So that when we receive it and we return love to him, it really means something.

God didn't do this.

Our enemies did this.

And if the church will rise up and ask God to make it right, he will.

He will.

This is a time for the church to ask God to make this right.

And then let the world watch what the Lord will do.

Second question.

Whose fault is this?

Sure, it's the terrorists' fault, but in our country, whose fault is it?

And as late as yesterday, I was watching TV, and there's still angry people that are saying this is a failure of the intelligence community, and they're blaming the intelligence community.

Others are still blaming the failure of our security measures.

But I've been reading books about terrorism now for a number of years, and they all say this.

If a sufficient number of well-financed, patient terrorists who are willing to give up their life to kill Americans, if we encounter a group of people like that, there is no way to protect us from all their attacks.

They will get through.

They will kill some people if they're willing to give up their own life.

And some are blaming it on the moral and spiritual climate of America.

And there are things wrong with our moral and spiritual climate.

We're not uh, we have had some decline.

But are we really worse off than other nations?

When we give aid all around the world, and if there's a disaster around the world, who's usually the first on the scene and whose money is it that's bringing relief and supplies?

Are we really worse off than the other nations?

I don't think this is a time to be blaming America for uh for these attacks.

Then there's another group, and and uh you and people from the church, and they're blaming it on the church.

They're saying this is the church's fault.

If I were forced to blame somebody, if you just said, you've got to pick somebody and pin the blame on them besides the terrorists, I probably would pick the church.

Because we're the ones, not the government, we're the ones who are called to be the salt of the earth, right?

God didn't ordain government to be the salt of the earth.

He ordained government for another purpose.

He ordained you and me to be the preservative influence in the earth.

And it could be that the church has desired affluence more than salt.

If I were going to be really honest, I couldn't just blame the church out there.

I'd have to blame my church.

The church I go to.

I'd have to say, where were our protective prayers for the nations?

I I've been in a lot of services in my church, but uh until last week, I don't recall that we ever began the service by doing exactly what the Bible says to do, praying for our leaders and our nation.

And I don't recall many prayer meetings in our church where we were actually praying for our country, just taking time to pray for our country, or even praying for revival.

I'd have to say, where were we?

Where were we?

Where were our prayers?

Where were our intercession?

The truth is, in my church, for every person who's willing to labor in prayer for our country and its leaders, there are a hundred more who are just content to criticize it.

And you know, criticism doesn't change anything, does it, for the most part?

But prayer does.

Where were we?

Why weren't we praying?

Where was our prophetic discernment when warnings were needed ahead of time?

Now, if you lived in Israel in Elisha's time, Elisha was able, when they were in the war with Syria, Elisha was able to hear the Syrian commander making plans in his own bedroom and then go back and tell the Israelite king, and the Israelite king could win the battle or avoid the trap.

I say, where were our Elisha's?

Where was our prophetic voice in our church?

You can't just ignore prophetic ministry for 200 years and expect an Elisha to come on the scene, can you?

But if I were going to be really, really honest and blaming the church, I couldn't stop with just blaming my church.

I'd have to blame myself.

I'd have to say, why wasn't I following 1 Timothy 2, 1 to 8?

Why wasn't I doing this?

Why wasn't I helping to lead my church to do this?

Why wasn't I more involved in an intercessory ministry in our church?

I'd also have to say, Jack, why were you willing to criticize the government and what you think is incompetent about the government and not pray for it?

Why were you willing to criticize more than pray?

Where was your prophetic discernment?

Why were you asleep on the watch?

It's really natural in times of tragedy to look for someone to pin the blame on.

But blame doesn't really work unless we put it on ourselves.

But I'm not sure that's the right thing to do.

And I'm not sure those people in New York right now need anybody blamed in America.

What they really need is the comfort of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What they really need is to know how much he loves them and how good he is at making wrong things right.

That's the voice they need to hear right now.

And you know, even if we had been a perfect church, relatively mature and wise, and I've been relatively mature and wise, do we really think those planes wouldn't have hit that trade center?

Wouldn't have hit the Pentagon?

Do we really think that?

Do we really believe in our heart of hearts that bad things don't happen to good people?

Jesus was a perfect person, and bad things happened to him.

I'm not sure this is a time to be trying to fix the blame on anyone, that it's so natural to do.

Jesus was addressing a crowd in Luke 13, 1 to 5, and he said, Do you think that tower in Siloam that fell on the 18 people and killed them?

Do you think those people were more evil than others?

He said, I tell you, all people everywhere will perish if they don't repent.

We're all in the same boat.

The disciples, they were there, they heard that, but they don't, they didn't really get it.

He's walking along with them a little bit later, and they see a man born blind.

And their first question was, What?

Lord, who sinned?

This man or his parents?

And Jesus said, Neither.

This happened for the glory of God.

And I tell you, I believe what happened to us on September 11th is ultimately for the glory of God.

And he's going to bring good out of it.

And you say, how in the world could he bring good out of that or glory to himself?

That's our third question.

Let me tell you some of the good, the glory that's already coming out of this.

Through this tragedy, God has shown the whole world who the real heroes are.

They're not the sports figures, they're not Hollywood celebrities, and they're not the people who control wealth in this country.

Who are the real heroes?

The real heroes are the common men and the common women who were willing to lay down their lives to save others.

In most cases, save people they didn't even know.

None of us will ever recover from that image of the firefighters going up the stairs into a building that's burning at about 1600 to 2,000 degrees, and other people are escaping, and yet they're going in to still look for other people.

None of us will ever recover from that.

Or a priest who stops to pray for a dying man and he's killed in the process by falling debris.

Or the policemen or the others who gave their life in order to save, rescue people during that time.

The whole world has seen that.

CNN goes all over the world.

The whole world has seen who the real heroes are now.

And the Lord's done something else, too.

He's shown us what really matters.

He's shown the whole world what really matters.

All of these accounts of people in the last seconds in the building and on the plane, picking up phones, cell phones, and calling.

Who are they calling?

They weren't calling their stockbrokers.

They weren't calling their financial advisors.

They were calling the people they loved.

See, what really matters is people and the people we love.

What really makes life worth living is not what we have, but it's the love that we share with people.

Now, nobody's disputing that these days.

Third thing he's done is he's brought together two bickering political parties.

You know, I hardly hear the label, Democrat or Republican anymore.

If you hear it, it's in the background.

It doesn't seem to matter.

Things that were dividing us on September 10th don't seem to be dividing us right now.

I thought one of the most astounding things to come out of this is that week churches were filled, Bible studies were filled, there was standing room only in some places.

People are turning to the Lord, turning to spiritual people for answers.

There was a hockey game that was being played, and uh during the intermission, they they uh put up on the big screen up there Bush's speech to the nation that night when he was declaring war.

Then the intermission was over and the hockey team started to play again, and they turned it off, and all the people in the stadium started booing.

So they turned it back on, the hockey team sat down, everybody watched it.

And when you know Congress got up and clapped like that, all the people in the stands got up and clapped like that.

And after it was over, the players didn't want to play, and the people didn't want to watch a hockey game.

They just declared a 2-2 tie, and that was it.

And something happened last Sunday that has never before happened in the history of New York.

Yankee Stadium had 60,000 people in it to pray to God.

Never happened before in the history of New York, the history of Yankee Stadium.

And a couple of my friends were a little upset about the prayer meeting because they had Muslims and Jewish people praying and it wasn't all Christian.

And I said, don't be upset about that.

I mean, there's 60,000 people looking up, searching God.

He can find people, he can find people, whether they're, you know, believe like we do or not.

The main thing is people are turning to God.

Are we turning to God and do we have answers for those people?

See, somebody says, is this revival?

Do you think this will last?

Could be.

Could be cataclysmic worldwide revival.

Number of prophets, I know, uh, and especially Paul Cain back in the 50s, had visions of stadiums all over America being filled with people hungry for God and miracles happen and no sporting events happening.

See, I think sports are wonderful as a diversion.

But they're not so great as a God.

And sports have been the God of America for some time now.

Could it be that we're standing on the edge of seeing that God dethroned and the real God take its place?

Could we be on the edge of a cataclysmic outpouring of the Holy Spirit?

Why don't we just keep praying and let God prove us wrong?

The thing I fear is that the church is praying right now, but in another week or two weeks or so we might stop praying.

Why don't we just keep praying and see what happens?

Another thing that's happening is there's a gratitude all over this country for living here, for living in this wonderful place of prosperity and freedom.

I don't feel like criticizing my country now, do you?

I'm seeing just a gratitude, a thankfulness come across the country.

Those are all wonderful things.

And I think these are just the first roots, just the just the beginning of what God could give us if we, the church, will respond in the right way.

There's a fourth question.

What good could possibly have come out of this for all those who died in these attacks?

Nobody wants to debate that God's doing something wonderful.

Even the Wall Street Journal says that God has come on center stage in America now.

Nobody wants to debate that God is doing some wonderful things.

But what good could have possibly come out of this for all those who died in these attacks?

Well, the people who knew the Lord Jesus Christ, people who were born again, when they were, that plane went down, that building came down on them, and they closed their eyes in death, the second they opened their eyes, they were staring into the face of perfect love.

And they are perfectly fulfilled, totally happy forever and ever.

And you know what?

In the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are not worried about their loved ones left behind.

When they feel that love going through them, they know that one who loves them like that, loves their family like that, and he will make wrong things right for them.

He will take care of them till he brings them to heaven.

But what about the people who got on planes that day?

And when they walked on that plane, they didn't know the Lord Jesus.

What about people who, when they walked into that building that day, they had spent virtually their whole life ignoring the Lord Jesus Christ?

What about those people?

Where was God for them?

I'll tell you where God was.

He was with them every second, every step, he was with them.

This did not take God by surprise.

He knew what was going to happen.

And I believe his special presence was with every single person in those buildings, on those planes.

And in his mercy, he's given us snapshots in the planes and in the buildings of what was happening in those final hours.

One of the most famous ones now is the one that uh the one that took place uh on the flight that crashed, the United flight that crashed in uh Pennsylvania.

There was a man named Todd Beaman on that flight, and he took a uh airphone off when they realized what was happening and and uh the the had known that the plane, other planes had crashed into the trade center, and now this one was gonna crash and they were turning it around.

He took an airphone off and he called the operator and he told her his name, said he was on the what flight he was on.

He said, We've been hijacked.

And after this is over, if I don't come out of this, I want you to call my wife.

Her name is Lisa Beaman.

Here's her number.

I want you to call her, and I want you to tell her I love her.

And he said, Would you say the Lord's prayer with me?

The lady that was taking the call, her name was Lisa also, Lisa Jefferson.

And she said, They went through the whole prayer.

She said the whole Lord's prayer from top to bottom.

And then she Heard him put down the phone, he told her that he and some of the other passengers had agreed they were going to storm the hijackers.

She heard him put down the phone and say, Let's roll.

And when his wife, Lisa, heard that, she burst into tears because she knew the message was really from him.

Because that was one of his favorite sayings around the family.

You know, he would say to the kids or to her, let's roll, let's go do this.

She knew that was her husband going off on his final heroic act.

See, here's a man who knows he has seconds to live.

What does he do?

He says, I want my wife to know I love her.

I want to talk to my God, and then I want to keep these people from hurting other people.

I don't think there's any way to know how many people, when those airlines started going down, how many people on those airlines in the last seconds of their life just looked up to heaven and said, Lord, save me.

Or those people that jumped out of the World Trade Center to escape the pain of the fire on the way down, how many of them said, Lord, save me on the way down?

Or when the buildings began to fall, how many people lifted their hands up and just said, Lord, save me?

Well, I can tell you, on the authority of God's word, their cries were not in vain.

For the Scripture says, in the last days, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

It says that twice so we don't miss it.

It says it in Joel 2.

Peter quotes it again in Acts 2.

And I was telling somebody about this, and they said, Do you really mean that?

Do you really think a person could live their whole life independent of God and then offer him only the last few seconds and God would take that deal?

Do you really mean that?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

In fact, I have an example of it in the scriptures.

The thief on the cross next to Jesus in the last seconds of his life, he turns to Jesus and he can't offer him a good life anymore.

He can't get baptized.

He can't give him money.

He can't promise to be good anyway.

He can't do anything.

All he can do is turn to the Lord of life and say, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus looked at him and said, Today you shall be with me in paradise.

The thing the devil always, always underestimates, the thing he can never take into account, because he has none of it in his heart, is the mercy of God.

The mercy of God, the love of the Lord Jesus, always frustrates the plans of the devil.

God's mercy is so great that if we call out to him, he'll take the last few seconds of our life so that he can have us for all eternity.

I think there's no way to know how many people on September 11th entered into heaven, just like the thief on the cross did.

Because in the last seconds of their life, they said, Lord, remember me.

Lord, save me.

And they're forever happy.

And they are praying for their loved ones now, even from heaven.

People pray in heaven.

You know that?

They talk to the Lord in heaven about their concerns on the earth.

Read Revelation 6.

Fifth question.

And this is what we're engaged in right now.

Should we forgive and forego retaliation?

Well, the answer to the first part of that, should we forgive?

Absolutely.

No Christian has a right to hold hatred or unforgiveness in their heart toward anybody.

Jesus gave us the example on the cross when they nailed him to the cross.

He said, Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do.

You and I are going to heaven because Jesus forgave us.

Nobody is going to heaven because they deserve it.

No one on earth at any time, anywhere, deserves forgiveness.

Forgiveness is always given as mercy and grace.

And we're called to do that.

And Jesus warned us in Matthew 18, verses 21 to 35, that if we don't forgive, that we will go into a spiritual prison and we will stay there until we forgive from our heart.

Matthew 18:21–35

Should we forgive?

Absolutely.

Should we forgo retaliation?

No way.

We are obligated to retaliate for what the terrorists did.

Turn to Romans chapter 13.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 13.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

Verse 1.

Romans 13, verse 1.

Romans 13:1

Everyone.

You notice that word?

Everyone.

It doesn't make any difference what country you're in.

It doesn't make any difference what your race is.

This is what God has ordained.

Everyone must submit himself to governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted.

And those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong.

Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority?

Then do what is right, and he will commend you.

For he is God's servant to do you good.

But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.

In first century Rome, the sword was the instrument of capital punishment.

God says, I have given government the right to take life.

He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

Therefore, it's necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment, but also because of conscience.

I know there are demonstrations about peace and that sort of thing going on, even in our country today, and saying don't return violence with violence.

But that is a naive misunderstanding of the way the world operates and the function of government under God.

God is the one who obligates our government to retaliate.

If for no other reason our government should retaliate and punish the wrongdoers for righteousness' sake because it is just.

But there's a second reason they should punish the terrorists.

These people have declared war on us and have promised us more of the same.

Our government has to retaliate in order to protect its citizens.

That is one of the functions of government, to protect the citizens.

Ultimately, that's why we pay taxes so we can live under the protection of a government.

Did you notice right after this happened that financial markets all over the world dropped?

Did you notice that?

Did you see that in the news reports?

One of the reasons those markets dropped was because the risk of doing business just shot way up.

If you can bomb somebody randomly and bankrupt the business like airlines within a matter of weeks, then investing in those airlines is a very risky thing.

And the greater the risk, this is a principle of investment.

The greater the risk, the less the investment is worth.

Right?

And if this were allowed to go on unchecked, there would be no stability to do business, and we would be back in a third world state.

And they would love to reduce us to that level of economy and to that kind of lifestyle.

If that's what they would love to do, that's what they deserve to live in.

Not ruin the stability of our society, of our economic life.

Just one little provision here.

Our retaliation must be righteous.

It must be just.

Those are the people who need to be punished, not innocent people who are already suffering under an oppressive regime.

This is one of the reasons that we as the church need to be praying for our government right now and be praying for our military.

There are psalms in the Old Testament that are called royal psalms.

There are prayers for the king and prayers for the king in battle.

And here's one of them that would be wonderful if the church would just rise up and pray.

This is Psalm 20, verse 2.

Psalms 20:2

Here's the prayer.

And it's for David.

May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion.

May God actually go with our troops and be their help and be their guide during this time.

Now I'll tell you one thing.

The church rises up and prays that prayer, and God in his mercy answers it.

It's not the might of the U.S.

military the murderers need to fear.

It's the wrath of the lamb on the throne they need to fear.

He knows how to conduct war.

And he has one plan for the very last days.

He knows how to conduct war.

Sixth question.

These are serious times.

Are they the last times?

People everywhere are asking that.

Are these the last times?

I read a sermon by C.S.

Lewis.

I read it when I was maybe 18 years old, and I just reread it again the other day.

It was preached at Oxford in 1939 as Britain was entering into World War II.

And it was preached in the chapel on a Sunday there, and it was called Learning and Wartime.

There were people saying, How could you keep Oxford open or Cambridge open?

How can you justify going to study literature when thousands upon thousands of people are about to die and our way of life may be altered forever?

And C.S.

Lewis preached a sermon, and if I could, I'd just like to paraphrase a few of his comments and put them in our context.

September 11th has changed many things in our country, but it has not changed the fundamental realities of life and death.

Neither terrorism nor war make death more frequent.

A hundred percent of us are going to die.

More people die from disease and accident than they do from terrorism or war.

And when I say Belfast, what do you think of?

You think of a city filled with terrorism.

That's true.

But did you know there are not as many murderers per capita in Belfast as there are in Washington, D.C.

See, what September 11th has done for us is not to make death more frequent, but it's to make death more real to us.

The average person doesn't think he or she's going to die.

Most of us don't even consider our mortality until we get very old or we get very sick.

Many people, in fact, most people in our country live as though their ultimate happiness could be found right here on earth, in earth.

And what September 11th has done for us is force us to realize that a happiness built on bank accounts and possessions is doomed to a final frustration.

We'll never lose the image of those people calling their loved ones in those final seconds.

In ordinary times, only the wisest of us know this.

Now, even the dullest of us know it.

See, the real truth is at all times are serious times.

That's the real truth.

It's only relative periods of peace and prosperity that lull us into thinking otherwise.

Every single person in this room right now is on the most serious journey of their life.

Every single person.

Every single person in this room is either advancing toward heaven or advancing toward hell.

All of us are on the most serious journey imaginable.

And not just us, but everybody that we'll come into contact with.

After the service is over, some of us will go out to eat.

Server will come and wait on us, and the tendency will defeat it to think, oh, that's just a server.

You know, give them a tip, maybe touch their hand as you hand them money.

That's just a server.

No?

It's not just a server.

That person who waits on your table this afternoon is destined to be an eternal splendor in heaven with Jesus Christ, or an immortal horror in hell with the devil and the demons.

All of us are on the most serious journey imaginable.

And what's happened to us in the last three weeks is it's made this so real, it's forcing us to answer the ultimate questions in life, the most important questions.

All over the country right now.

There are mothers, and many of you mothers here are asking this question.

Should my son die for this country?

What if the draft is brought back?

And you have a son that's 18 to 24 years of age.

Should he die for this country?

Should he leave?

What should he do?

Young men and women are asking themselves that, and they're actually, some of them are saying, yes, I should, and they're enlisting right now.

People are asking fundamental questions.

What is it that I would die for?

What's worth dying for?

Is this country worth dying for?

Is freedom worth dying for?

I think many of us would say yes.

Many of us would say yes.

You know, somebody did die for it, that's why we're here.

We're here because somebody shed their blood and bought our freedom and bought this wonderful country we live in.

All of us would say our families are worth dying for.

Our loved ones are worth dying for.

And the most noble among us would say there are even strangers worth dying for because it's my job.

It's what I was made to do.

There's a more important question than what would I die for?

Much more important question.

There are many things perhaps worth dying for, but there's only one thing worth living for.

Only one thing worth living for.

Every one of us was created for eternity.

And what we live for better be eternal.

Do you know what you're living for?

Do you know what you're really, really living for?

If it's not eternal, you need to reconsider what you're living for.

If you haven't come into a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and actually begun a real relationship with him, there's not been a better time in your life to do that than right now.

These are serious days.

Are they the last days?

Are they the last days?

Jesus said in Matthew 24 in the last days that lawlessness would increase.

Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2, 1 to 12 that lawlessness would increase and a delusion would come with it so that people would actually think they're doing the will of God.

Somebody says, What are you so upset about?

These buildings getting bombed for.

Terrorists have been bombing buildings for 40 years in other places.

That may be true.

That may be true.

But did you know prior to this, the greatest life lost in any terrorist account happened in India when a disgruntled water disgruntled worker put water someplace in a nuclear reactor?

It wasn't supposed to go, and it killed 4,000 people.

This has killed about 7,000 people, and it's happened in the most secure, powerful nation in the earth.

Jesus said the church should know how to read the signs of the times.

And is it are these signs now that we're at the beginning of the last days?

Are we entering the last days?

I say yes, I think we are.

That's my opinion.

It's not the word of the Lord.

I'm not saying God told me that.

I know some very gifted prophetic people who hold that opinion.

But I think, yes, I think this is the beginning of the end.

And that leads us to the last question.

What should we do?

What should we do?

Turn to 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

We'll close with this.

Very succinctly.

Peter actually tells us, through the Holy Spirit, what we ought to do.

1 Peter 4 verse 7.

1 Peter 4:7

1 Peter chapter 4, verse 7.

1 Peter 4:7

See, if you believe that this really is the beginning of the end today, you're actually in good company.

Apostolic company.

Look what Peter says.

The end of all things is near.

Therefore, be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.

In the last days, the first obligation of the church is to pray.

In the last days, there will be so much confusion, so many different voices.

There will be five roads, and they'll all look good, but only one will be the right road.

The people who pray, the church that prays, will get on that road.

You know, they call this prayer meeting in uh Yankee Stadium.

And a journalist, he wasn't being hostile, he just asked the uh one of the organizers, he says, Well, what value is prayer?

I mean, why should we all get together and pray?

What does prayer do?

Well, ask the people in Nineveh what prayer does.

They got together and prayed and saved their city at that time.

Prayer from sincere hearts moves the heart of God to act upon the earth.

And we might could do some things by ourselves, but how much better to have God do them?

In the last days, the church will actually become a praying church.

One of the reasons I believe we're in the last days is because all over the world there is this hunger on the church to pray 24 hours a day.

It's a 24-hour prayer movement.

It's going on outside our country, it's going on in our country.

There's a church in Kansas City that since May of 2000, they have been praying night and day, praying and worshiping God for 24 hours.

When he commands something for the last days, he will also give the grace to do it.

What should we do?

We should pray more than we ever have before.

Not a shopping list to God, but a real conversation with a real person, pouring out our heart to him more than ever before.

Second thing he says, verse 8, above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.

It's only praying people that love.

Praying people can love deeply.

We're coming into a time where backbiting, judging one another, fault-finding, grumbling, all those sort of things, we're going to see those decline in the church, and the church is going to be passionate for the Lord Jesus and passionate for one another.

And the last thing you wouldn't expect this, verse 10, he says, each one of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

The Lord says, I've given every single person in this room a powerful spiritual gift.

Some of us may have more than one spiritual gift, but every single person has at least one.

And with that, a commitment from God to empower you to use that gift supernaturally.

If we pray, if we love one another, and if we use our the gifts he's given us, and we use them effectively under his power, we will transform the earth in which we live.

Our weapons are not weapons of fleshly warfare.

Our weapons are spiritual, and they begin with our spiritual gifts.

Never before in history has it been more appropriate for the church to learn how to use spiritual gifts.

And you know, most of us believe in spiritual gifts, but we have a tendency just to believe in them and not use them.

This is a time to learn what your gift is and to be deployed, recruited, deployed, trained for spiritual warfare in the church today.

Well, what if this is not the last days?

What if I'm wrong?

What if you believe me and you're wrong, but you still act like it's the last days?

So you make up your mind, you're gonna pray, you're gonna love, and you're gonna use your spiritual gifts.

That'd be a good mistake to make, wouldn't it?

If we're wrong, we'll have just left the world a better place and us will have been better people for it.

One thing we ought to be sure that we're telling people these days is that God is on the throne.

Two thousand years ago, God let angry, hate-filled men energized by the devil, kill his only son.

He knows our heartache, and he knows our outrage, and he turned the death of his son into the redemption of the world.

Now I've He'll redeem September 11th in a major way.

If these really are the last days, you need to know this.

Worse times are ahead of us.

If these really are the last days, worse times are ahead of us.

Not just worst times in New York, worst times on the West Coast, but right here in the Metroplex.

Worst times are really ahead of us.

And the truth is, even if it's not the last days, worse times are probably ahead of us.

I've been reading books on terrorism for a while now, and they're not debating if, they're just debating when.

What we saw on September 11th was a low-tech operation skillfully brought off.

But the books are worried about high-tech operations, about nuclear devices.

And the books are telling how easy it is to get nuclear devices, to get the material for them right now, how easy it is to get chemical weapons, biohazard weapons.

And they have the hatred and the commitment and the money and the patience to use it.

And they probably have people already in place that have security clearances.

They probably do.

They've been planning this, this last thing they planned for a long time.

This has been going on since the uh 80s, people infiltrating and getting in places.

Some of you are looking really somber right now.

It's a time to be somber.

Is it a time to be afraid?

Not on your life.

Because if the times really are going to get worse, guess what's going to get better?

In Isaiah 60, it's a passage that's talking about the last days, and it says Isaiah 61 to 3, darkness is all over the face of the earth.

And then this voice calls out of the darkness to the people of God.

Arise and shine, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

If this really is the last days, where is the first line of defense going to be?

It's going to be with the church, with the people of God, and it's going to be the finest hour for the church.

It's going to be the greatest glory, the greatest cataclysmic outpouring of the Holy Spirit ever is going to be on the church in the last days.

And we will rise to the occasion.

We will have a message.

It could just be that you and I were born for a time just like this.

This could be our finest hour, also.

Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid.

Be serious.

Pray, love, and use your spiritual gift.

And then watch what God is going to do in our lives.

Devil fired a shot on September 11th.

But if we'll pray, that shot will backfire and it will wake up sleepers all over the world to the eternal grace, power, and beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's just pray that that's what happens.

Would you bow with me?

Lord, thank you that we are not, as others who don't know you, who have no hope.

Thank you that even in the most perilous times, if we're sitting on the brink of something that's worse than we can possibly imagine, that we can be filled with hope and joy and anticipation right now.

Would you give us the wisdom, the discipline, the grace to follow what you have commanded the church to do since the first century, to pray, to love, and to use our spiritual gifts under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you for your mercy.

Thank you for your kindness in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.