Warning!! from the World Trade Center Disaster          

“A Prayer for them, for you and for me”

 

 

 

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will go down in history as the day on which the worst terrorist attack occurred in the history of the world.  So say men, especially on the western side of this wide earth.  It was certainly horrible and horrifying. As the workweek was just getting started, a few minutes before 9 A.M., two planes crashed into both of the towers of one the world’s highest skyscrapers and eventually brought them down.  There were thousands of people, many of them professionals occupying the excess of 100 floors there. 

 

How terrifying it must have been for them and how terrible that so many have lost their lives at what otherwise would have been a normal workday at the famous, “financial center of the world.”   Can we for a moment just imagine what it must have felt like to see and hear two huge planes colliding into the massive structures, which for that fatal hour had housed these folk? 

 

On a nice summer morning, in the “greatest city of the greatest democracy” in the world they met with utter tragedy.  To have to stare at sudden, impending doom directly, “in the face”, from the windows of a shiny, office building/tourist attraction and then ultimately perish, leaves one feeling so very sorry for those people who had to die in that way.

 

Let’s observe that, just like any one of us, they got up in the morning to the sound of an alarm clock at 5, 5:30 or 6 a.m.  Maybe like so many do, the first thing they heard was the news for the day.  World news, national news, local news, sports, business news etc.  Off to the bath, putting on neat clothes, the perfume, the watch, the shoes and combing of the hair etc.  The things most people pay a lot of attention to when getting ready for a successful day at work.  Then breakfast perhaps and into the car or bus/train headed for the offices at the World Trade Center. No doubt, many of those people were, “well to do” holding stocks and bonds and so on.  Probably they were dressed in the finest suits and dresses. The families were probably well settled and once at the office, a cup of coffee and a phone call to a spouse began the routine for the workday.

 

And then this had to occur.  Not only an unthinkable intrusion into their well planned life, but an end to all their worldly existence in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds for some.

 

Who would ever imagine in their wildest imaginings, except for fictitious films, that such an event would transpire in America, in the world famous New York City for that matter?

 

Yet it happened. Wives were suddenly left without husbands and husbands were suddenly bereft of their wives and children of their parents and so on.

 

The towers of technology and success in the eyes of the world became monuments of mourning.  Suddenly, those who previously would have loved to say, “I work at the World Trade Center” deemed it a curse instead.

 

 

Was anyone of those thousands of people from a number of different countries ready for death without warning?

 

What was the state of their souls?  May God have mercy on the living, for the dead (sadly)are gone, never to return. We cannot pray for them with any effect according to the Scriptures. For the Bible says, “… it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment …” - Hebrews 9:27

 

But we can pray for their loved ones who are alive. 

 

Many in New York City have thought, no doubt the following: “There is no place safe anymore on earth.” 

 

Safety is not found in a physical location or a position one occupies in this world.

 

Money cannot guarantee the future; securities in the world of finances cannot secure our well-being tomorrow.  All these things are like shifting sand. If the market fails, then all the money fails.

 

And what of physical fitness? How many athletes known and unknown have perished unexpectedly, when they were, “in the best shape of their life?”

There are those whose premature deaths have been published and many more for sure that have not been broadcast to the public.

 

The point is that nothing is for certain in this world. Only a right relationship with God is.

 

How many world leaders do we know of who have been murdered even while under heavy military guard?

 

How many accidents, earthquakes, volcanic explosions and other, “natural” disasters have destroyed famous people in what the world has called, “unsinkable” or “impenetrable?”

 

No one is truly, “safe” anywhere in this world or in this life.

 

However, there is a way in which one can find true safety, real security.

 

Safety is found in a person, Jesus Christ. He conquered that father lies and that greatest of murderers and ultimate terrorist, the devil. He defeated him on the cross.  A wonder to consider! That on the cross, the Lord died for our sins and destroyed the works of Satan as well.  Hence, death has no power on the child of God. It is just a curtain to go through to Heaven.

 

 

We should and must pray for “them”: those who have lost loved ones.

By the mercies of God they weren’t there.  They have now, time to be awakened to the fact of death and judgment once again. Let not another tragedy pass before they take a spiritual inventory of themselves. We should pray that they would be saved from the wrath to come also and have a true, loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Who needs money and prestige and success if it means the pathway to sudden disaster and loss of one’s own life and soul? Consider what God says regarding this in Luke’s gospel chapter 12:

 

5  And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

16  And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

17  And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

18  And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

19  And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

20  But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? {thy…: Gr. do they require thy soul}

21  So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

 

We need to pray for us: “you and me.”

 

Again, by the mercies of God, we were not there. What did the Lord say to those who reported to Him a tragedy that had occurred at Siloam, when the tower fell on some people and killed them or when there those who were murdered and a heathen leader mingled the peoples’ blood with their own sacrifices?

 

1 ¶ There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

2  And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?

3  I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

4  Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? {sinners: or, debtors}

5  I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. - Luke 13:1-5

 

He said something that should alert each of us to the actual state of our souls regardless of who we are and what we have accomplished in our life.

 

The Lord Jesus said that unless we repent of our sins, we will also perish like them!

 

Whether people died at the “Twin Towers” or by the tower at Siloam, one day such a thing can happen to us.

 

The big question is one that will take us out of our, “fantasy land”, self-righteous, self-deceived attitude.

 

Are we ready to die? That is, are we ready to meet God?

 

Why should God spare us any tragedy? Do we love Him?

 

Are we willing to die for Him, for His cause?

 

If our life should get cut short by a, “tragedy”, where will we be spending Eternity?

 

In short dear reader, you and I are not any better than those people that perished at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon in the capital that day, in such a sudden, vicious way.

 

We can be made ready, however to escape the great judgment that will come upon the world soon. In fact, the Bible says that a man, the Anti-Christ will afflict the peoples of the world with horrible punishment. Those who are faithful to God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (God, the Son; the second Person of the Trinity) will be prepared by the Holy Spirit (the third Person of the Trinity) to be saved and taken by Jesus when He suddenly returns.

The Lord says to us, of what value is gaining the world? Only to lose one’s own soul? The soul is the real you and me. That immaterial part of us that we cannot see will go on forever either in Eternal Life in Heaven with God Almighty or in Everlasting torment in the Lake of Fire.

 

Is our god money, popularity, power in this world system? Then we are doomed for not only physical destruction but eternal destruction of the soul as well, when God’s wrath will be poured on the world.

 

 

Dear reader,

 

Give your heart to Jesus now

and live for His glory

and He will give you eternal security.

 

You will finally be free from the fear of death and destruction !

 

The good news for those who are in a right relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ:

 

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” - 2 Timothy 1:7 

 

Now are we telling the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to others so they can be saved from everlasting Hell if death should strike them suddenly?

 

God will require that at our hands.

 

May God speak to your heart today through this article.