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"Fearful
lest it be relegated to the position of an isolated sect, Christianity
seems to be making frenzied efforts at mimicry in order to escape being
devoured by its enemies--a reaction that seems defensive, but is in fact
self-destructive. In the hope of saving itself, it seems to be assuming
the colors of its environment, but the result is that it loses its
identity. . . ."
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A sermon by Michael S. Heath, Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, on the fourth anniversary of September 11. Delivered at the Augusta Church of the Nazarene on Sunday, September 11, 2005. The Cross at Ground Zero We have before us a most difficult subject to discuss. I cannot present you with a rosy picture of what happened four years ago today. To do so would trivialize what happened then; and we would be doing a disservice to the victims and their families. We would be cheating ourselves to take a shallow view of the events that happened that day. Television no longer runs footage of 9-11, 2001. I imagine there are many reasons why those images are not shown. One reason given is that it would stir up hatred against the Moslem community; but I do not think that is the reason at all. The reason why these images are not shown is that they are simply too disturbing. They raise questions about life which modern man finds discomforting – they take modern man out of his comfort zone - and so they are out of place in a mass media which is meant to tranquillize and to soothe the nerves of a weary and agitated public. Since we cannot do the best thing, which would be to tell the story of what happened that day through the eyes of the victims, let us recount what others saw. On a bright September morning, the people of Manhattan made their way to work. Some who worked in the financial district once again looked up to the soaring tops of the Twin Towers in wonder. No one could look at the Twin Towers without a sense of wonder. They were so tall, sturdy, and overpowering that they seemed to have an almost heavenly strength. When one stood on the top floor and looked out over Manhattan, the world of man seemed very small indeed. The sailboats out in Verrazano Harbor looked like no more than white flecks of cotton. The people of Manhattan thought the towers would be there forever, like the Sphinx or the pyramids…By ten-thirty that morning they were gone. And so were three thousand lives. After the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, 1366 human souls were trapped above the point of impact on the North Tower. None survived. In the South Tower, as many as 600 people were trapped above the point of impact. Eighteen survived. To escape the heat and flames, many leapt to their death. Perhaps you have seen video of this. You may not know however, that over two hundred people leapt to their deaths. Inside the buildings, those that could, made a frantic rush down the stairs. I know of one woman two floors beneath the impact point in the South Tower, who as she made her way out in the suffocating smoke, saw the roof above her start to buckle. In another case, an employee in the top floor of the North Tower, e-mailed his wife…“There is no hope of getting out. Tell the children I love them.” On the ground, hundreds of police officers and fire fighters raced up the stairs in a frantic effort to save lives. All told, sixty police officers died that day, and three hundred and forty – three firefighters. Twenty --three members of the NYPD were awarded the departmental Medal of Honor posthumously – one of them a woman, Moira Smith. The mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, attended two-hundred funerals, and two thousand families never recovered the remains of their loved ones. Those outside the city never saw the constant succession of funerals. Even in New York City, the Capitol of the World, there were not enough funeral parlors to go around. The last of the funerals for the firefighters was held in May, seven months after 9-11. I have often asked myself why some men and women rush into danger even as others are rushing out. In the days following the disaster, a pillar of brownish-grey smoke rose up from the still smoldering site and hung over the city, a toxic cloud from the debris and the bodies still burning below. Within a few days, the photos of loved ones began to appear, and covered the walls of Grand Central Station, and the plywood fences around construction sites in the city. People were desperate to find their loved ones. They clung to the hope that if some stranger would only see a photo by chance, they might come across their loved one in a hospital…again by chance, by accident. But soon, even that slim hope disappeared. And then, flowers began to appear beneath the photos – hundreds of small bunches of flowers, as people realized their loved ones were never coming back. Postcards and letters came in from schools all around the world written with the big squiggles that children like to write saying, “We love you…we are sorry…goodbye.” Nothing was left – the buildings and the people – all gone. After gathering my notes about what I was going to say today, another disaster occurred, and that was the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. So now, just as we were getting ready to commemorate the disaster at the Twin Towers, a second alarm bell has gone off. Both events point to our vulnerability as a nation, since the events following Hurricane Katrina have shown us that in addition to enemies from outside our nation we are faced with deep divisions in our own society. It is interesting to note here that the word Katrina means cleansing or purification. Were we to eliminate terrorism completely, we would still be faced with a social disorder which is worse than terrorism, for it strikes at the very heart of our civilization, which is the family. Now, I am about to offer a very different view of our society from what you will hear on the nightly news, and some of you will disagree, and some of you will be offended. The current state of our society is not progressive. When one-hundred thousand marchers come to New Orleans every year, and some parade naked through the streets, is that progress? When birth control devices are handed out in schools that teach hatred of America and her heroes, is that progress? When cities spend more on floating casinos, than on dams and levees to protect their people, is that progress? When crime is so rampant that there is no longer any place to house the criminals, is that progress? We need to examine the current state of our nation, and ask ourselves which is a greater threat, terrorism, or immorality. These are the evils which must be addressed if we are to survive as a nation. Yet it is not enough to eliminate these evils, we must also move forward by achieving a greater social stability, a strong defense, and ensuring that ours is a productive and creative people. How is America to survive and move forward? Let us examine the methods on which we have relied in the past and the methods our nation is relying on now. First, let us examine the fate of nations which rely on sound counsel. You can be sure there is no shortage of this in Augusta or in Washington, D.C. We have as many think tanks as other nations have problems. The men advising our President are really quite brilliant. But sound counsel, or worldly wisdom, is not enough. The cabinet of Lincoln was filled with brilliant men, educated at Harvard and Yale, yet it was Lincoln’s wisdom, derived in large part from the Bible, and his sound practical sense gained as a frontiersman, a rail-splitter, and the owner of a grocery store that saw the nation through its deepest crisis. I will also tell you that history’s worst leader also had the best counselor, and that was the Roman philosopher Seneca. Seneca is renowned for the depth of his wisdom. No other pre-Christian philosopher was as wise. Yet the man he advised was called Nero, a man of the worst possible moral character. In the midst of its wealth and power, despite having the wisest men as advisors, Rome burnt to the ground. Then what of wealth and military power? Certainly that will protect a nation. Let me give you a list of names of those cities which have literally vanished over night: Troy… Carthage… Babylon… Sidon… Tyre…. And Persepolis, all legendary for their wealth and military power, and yet they were brought to ruin in a single day. When we think of military power we must of think of Spain whose vast armadas came to the New World empty but departed laden with gold. But the power of Spain gradually declined because of false values, while the power of England and the Netherlands steadily increased. The ships of Spain came to the New World in search of gold, but the ships of England – the Pilgrims and Puritans - came in search of God – and look at the result. The Pilgrims came here empty-handed. The Spanish came with arms and great galleons, and look at the result. One nation gave rise to America. The other gave rise to the nations of South America. So it will not be wealth and might which guard the walls of America. What then of democracy and freedom? Surely these are good in themselves. You may have heard the saying “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” And that was quite literally true. Britain, a nation which prides itself on its democratic institutions, once had an empire which included Canada, The Straits of Gibraltar, Suez, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia. That is quite a bit of territory… it in fact stretched around the globe. But where is Britain’s empire today? Today it has shrunk back to the island nation of Britain, and Britain must defend itself against a hostile foreign population which lives within its own borders. What went wrong? The answer lies in statististics. If you look at those nations in the world which have the highest percentage of atheists, you will find the following: Britain 31% - 44% atheists, or non-believers in God; France 43-54% atheists or non-believers in God; Belgium 42-43% atheists or non-believers in God. Where are the empires of France or Belgium today? And which nation do you think has the fewest atheists and non-believers? Does anyone want to take a guess? Yes, that is right - America, with 3% atheists or non-believers – the world’s lone superpower. I will remark that Britain was once a god-fearing nation, which sent missionaries into all the world…the likes of David Livingstone…but now it is known for the likes of Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, or Mick Jagger, missionaries of a different sort. And Britain is a nation in decline. I will say that the peak of America’s power was at the time it was most Christian. No nation was ever more powerful than that tiny band of settlers who came to America in search of the New Jerusalem. An untamed, virgin continent lay before them…and hungry, and with empty pockets, and with resolute Christian hearts, they tamed a vast wilderness and brought forth the greatest nation the world has ever known. There was perhaps only one nation that was ever more powerful, and that was the children of Israel as they stood shaking and helpless before the Red Sea, with pharaoh’s army behind them. Without an army, without enough food to eat, they were the most powerful nation on earth. If you don’t believe me, ask Pharaoh’s army. The weakest nation on earth was Babylon, mighty Babylon, on the day it fell. Her city walls were fifty-six miles in length, eighty feet thick and fifteen stories high. A chariot with four horses could do a turn on top of her walls. Inside the walls were fortresses filled with chariots and arms. And the city was filled with temples to their false god Marduk, with statues covered in shining gold. Yet Babylon collapsed in a single day, and her people were carried off as slaves. No city was as weak as Babylon on that day when the Persians took the city by surprise, not by entering through Babylon’s walls, or over them, but by a method no one had ever dreamed of – by going in under her mighty walls. Inside, the dissidents - citizens who sympathized with the Persian enemy - made sure the mighty city lost its will to resist. And Babylon was taken without a single shot being fired. So there you have it. Not wealth, not sound counsel, not military power, not democracy and freedom, is enough to ensure that a nation will continue to exist. A nation must be obedient to God. If America abandons God, it will go the way of the other nations. We will still have a time of wealth and pleasure, but the laughter will gradually die out, the merriment and the gay parades through the streets of our cities will cease; time will grow short, and the party will be over. Our crises will worsen; we will see more Twin Towers; more Hurricane Katrinas, and the chastisement of God will fall. That is why the only thing remaining amid the devastation at Ground Zero was a cross. You may remember the photo. After the Twin Towers collapsed, and the smoke cleared, there was a steel girder standing upright amid the ashes and rubble, and it was in the perfect form of a cross. Of course the doubters and skeptics said it was a coincidence. But the rescue workers who saw it sat down and wept like babies. Was it a coincidence or a miracle? Each man must decide for himself. On a bright September morning, a day like any other, the world’s mightiest buildings - its pride and splendor - collapsed into dust, and all that was left was the Cross at Ground Zero. But let us not close on that note. Let us remember the promises that God has made to the nations that are obedient to Him, and let us resolve on this September 11th 2005 to follow Him with all our hearts. We read in Deuteronomy 11:22-25 “If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow – to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways and to hold fast to him – the LORD will drive out all these nations before you; and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. Every place you set your foot will be yours… (Verse 25) There shall no man be able to stand before you; the Lord your God shall lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the land on which you set foot, as He has spoken to you.” Deuteronomy 28:7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way and shall flee before you seven ways.” Deuteronomy 28:13 “And the Lord shall make you the head and not the tail, and you only shall be above, and you shall not be underneath, if you will listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.” Deuteronomy 28:1-2 “Now it shall be, if you will diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 11:13-14 “And it shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil.” Deuteronomy 28:12 “The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season...” Deuteronomy 11:15 “And He will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be satisfied.” Deuteronomy 28:3 “Blessed shall you be in the city...” Deuteronomy 28:3 “...and blessed shall you be in the country.” END |
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The Christian Civic League of Maine 70 Sewall Street Augusta, Maine 04330 v- 207-622-7634 f- 207-621-0035 |
