Following Judah's Lion

A Real Tragedy

On 9/11/01 19 wicked men flew airliners into the World Trade Centers in New York City. Many people died including those same terrorist. It was a senseless tragedy.

I have been inside and on top of those same buildings, and in fact, I was saved in March of 1975 while gazing at that skyline which included those buildings. But let us come to a greater perspective. Those buildings were used primarily for financial business, and in New York City men buy and sell and make obscene amounts of money in any way they can. Inside those buildings men committed adultery, lied, did drugs, and manipulated investors in order to steal their money. Inside those building were people who professed to follow Jesus, and some who followed Moses, and some who followed Mohammed, and some who were Hindus, and some who were agnostic.

It is very sad to see believers in the Lord Jesus leave His glorious gospel and get all entangled with the doings of the world and treat something like an idol. And some think they do God a service by blocking the building of an Islamic center several blocks from southern Manhattan. We should grieve, not join, with the lost as they rally and parade against this or that while they are still dead in their sins. The piece of dirt called “Ground Zero” should have no importance to those who walk in the Spirit. 2600 people in America will die today in lockstep with the 2600 that died yesterday. Their death is usually not as dramatic as an event like 9/11, but in God’s sight their deaths are just as tragic.

How high does the rate of death increase when there is a war or a dramatic event like 9/11? It doesn’t. The rate of death is constant; 1 to 1. Every person born will die. And so the men of this world and this kingdom choose who they will honor and which events they will hallow. From Valley Forge to Gettysburg to Pearl Harbor to Normandy to Iraq and to Manhattan, men continue to mark events while being completely and pitifully blind to what is actually happening. Sinners are dying without Christ, and in spite of the how and why of their death, the truth remains. Those who know not Christ die into a Christless eternity forever. That, my fellow believers, is the real tragedy. Let us mourn for the second death more than the first.