Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. Do you remember where you were? I do. I was finishing out the basement in case we needed it for the family when they visited. My phone rang. To this day I don’t remember who called but they said, “Are you watching TV?” “No,” I responded. “Turn the TV on.” I immediately went upstairs and turned on the television. Stunned, dumbfounded, surreal, and disbelief are all descriptions of what I saw. The emotional upheaval we felt as individuals and as a nation would reverberate for years. Here we are twenty years later and I’m writing about it. We have young people in our church that don’t remember anything about that infamous day, they were not born. I fear for some of those kids when they take history in school. If those running the majority of schools today continue to be in charge, America will be responsible instead of al-Qaeda for almost three thousand killed by those airplanes. Four planes had been hijacked. The first hit was the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The second hit was the South Tower. The third plane hit the Pentagon while the fourth, headed toward the Whitehouse or the Capitol, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The crash into the field was due to the heroic efforts of passengers that fought with the terrorist trying to retake the plane. 2,977 people died that day from the four planned attacks. This was the largest number of deaths, that I’m aware of, by a single horrific act in American history. Pearl Harbor, December 7th, had 2,403 deaths on the day the Japanese attacked.

Now, twenty years out, what have we learned? It doesn’t seem like much. We just pulled our troops from Afghanistan leaving American citizens behind. Reports differ concerning the numbers. Some say a little over 100 while others use 500 as the number. The White House press secretary basically blamed it on the citizens because they didn’t get to the airport at Kabul. No mention that the Taliban had surrounded the facility not letting anyone through the checkpoints. Now we are negotiating with terrorists trying to secure passage out for some. Yesterday a plane finally left Afghanistan. Still, more are in hiding and possibly some have been captured and are being held hostage. We are now capitulating to the Taliban, the same group we attacked twenty years ago because they wouldn’t expel al-Qaeda. So, what have we learned as a nation? I’m not sure, but I see attacks on our soil coming in the future. Zero vetting as to the identities of those arriving daily and many are being scattered throughout the United States. Do you think it is possible that without being screened evil could be lurking in those arriving?

Let me give you three things to remember on this day of remembrance.

  1. Evil is still present. If you don’t see evil you aren’t looking. Josef Stalin is quoted as saying, “Kill a person and it’s a tragedy, kill a million and it’s a statistic.” Do you realize that more Christians were martyred in 2020 than in any year since the church began? There are Christians in the Middle East and in certain parts of Africa that are hunted daily because they are believers in the Lord Jesus. You may say, “Well, preacher, that is in other places not here.” Can you not see that daily we are, little by little, losing freedoms we once thought were sacrosanct? One day do this, the next do that. The god of this world seems to be playing our leaders like a violin. Should you begin fretting? No, just keep reading.
  2. Humanity still needs Christ. I was recently talking with a preacher friend from middle Georgia. His name is Jim. For 38 years he pastored in Cochran, a little small town just off I-75 known as the “Watermelon Capital of the World.” He was having some surgery a couple of weeks ago and as we preachers are wont to do, he asked one of the nurses if she knew about Jesus. She’d never heard of Jesus and had never been to church. He was dumbfounded. Another nurse came into the room, and he said, “Can you believe that this little lady has never heard about Jesus?” The second nurse responded, “I don’t know about Jesus either.” He witnessed to both and gave them some literature asking if he could talk with them more. Right smack-dab in the middle of the state of Georgia there are people that don’t know a single thing about Jesus. There are those within walking distance of the church that don’t know either. It is up to us to share the good news, the Gospel, with them. People don’t have a spark of the divine in them. They are sinners by nature and in need of a Savior.
  3. God is still in control. Fretting? I choose not to fret. I can do this because I know the God that can handle it all. The God that spoke everything into existence is still as powerful as that week of creation. The God that raised Jesus from the dead is still as powerful as he has ever been. These little things we face daily are minuscule to the Lord. I wasn’t a big kid growing up. There were times when boys in the neighborhood would try to bully me. A couple of those boys were a little older than me and were tough. I feared walking by myself, especially when walking near one of the bullies’ houses. But when I was with the Waddell boys, Ronnie and Donnie, I wasn’t scared at all. I had strong and powerful allies that could handle things if needed. God is better than the Waddell boys. When powerful people seek to harm the people of God, just remember God can protect without breaking a sweat. I simply refuse to allow my fears to dictate my daily life. God’s protection is the best security period.

Let’s remember to stay vigilant. Remember that another 9/11 could happen, but let’s also remember that God has a plan, and it will come to pass.