It Started Way before 9/11…

In the days following September 11, 2001, I heard something like this from the Lord : that He took no pleasure in that horrendous, vicious wounding of our nation. While many who stood behind pulpits, or listened from pews in front of them, preached judgment on America for her sins, I heard something else. I heard that a silent poison had been spreading, and was far more advanced than we knew. Stopping its spread required perseverance and a ’never forget’ mentality, and these in turn required such a wounding as the catastrophic tragedy that took place in New York city that morning. A lesser event could fade from memory, and not elicit the sustained vigilance necessary to combat terrorism and preserve our land.

This was how I understood what I believed was shared with me that day.

Today, I understand more. I understand the poison that had been spreading was, and is, something other than ‘terrorism’, in the sense that we, as ’Westerners’ know it. It is what produces that terrorism – an ideology that has been at work in our world for centuries. I would go so far as to say, it goes back to Biblical times, to Old Testament Israel, even to the Genesis creation accounts. It is, at root, the eternal conflict between the Most High and the one who presumed to say, “I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:14) And, in fact, its origins may be even deeper than this, in a sense – the boiled-down conflict is between law and grace.

While the Adversary desires to enslave, He who alone is God wants to set us free.

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I cannot emphasize enough how much Jesus came to set men free. I am so very, very clear on that. He knows the end from the beginning, and most certainly, looking down the corridors of time in ages past, saw the condition of our world today. The Ancient of Days knew. By His blood, in the New Covenant, He provided miraculously, fully and finally, for this condition which exists in man, and through man, produces chaos in the environment. (Even trying to reverse this chaos often only exacerbates it!) Man’s finest yet remains flawed, but a better Way has been given to us.

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