"COMFORT ON SEPTEMBER 11"

"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)

This morning, it was my great privilege to speak at Framingham's (Brazilian) Philadelphia Baptist Church in downtown Framingham. [Their main service (in Portuguese) is on Sunday nights, but their "English service" which attracts a smattering of Brazilians and Americans meets at 11 a.m.] Incidentally, lest anyone think Brazilians don't care about the attacks on America on 9/11/01, each Brazilian there was very moved about the events of 9/11 and prayer was offered for America's leaders in dealing with the challenging issue of terrorism and terrorists.

I spoke from the Twenty-seventh Psalm. I shared with the congregation that on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was volunteering for the day at Marian (Catholic) high school. I was doing data entry in one of the offices. I arrived at the school around 9 a.m. I sat down at the computer and began doing my work. At about 9:15, a school administrator burst into the office and said his mother had just phoned and said that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. There was a radio in the office that I flipped on. We immediately began hearing coverage from New York. At first, it was being reported that it was a terrible accident and that the planes were "a jet and a small commuter plane". Quickly, however, the news came out that there were two jets which had been deliberately flown into the towers. The announcers spoke of terrorism. Reports later came in about the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. At that time, no one knew HOW many planes had been hijacked and how many more terrible events could unfold. I was acting calm on the outside, but honestly, I was REALLY SCARED. Nothing like this had happened in my lifetime. I prayed silently, "Lord, I'm scared. I need you to give me a portion of Scripture to comfort me."

I pulled out my pocket-sized New Testament and Psalms and literally just flipped it open. It opened to Psalm 27 and my eyes fell on the first verse, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Was it a coincidence that I'd opened to that passage? No, that was God! I sat and read the entire Psalm. My fears instantly disappeared. The following Sunday, I preached my sermon from Psalm 27.

Today's sermon was completely different from what I preached in 2001. I prepared it fresh for this occasion. My outline for the Psalm 27 sermon came from 2 Timothy 1:7 (quoted above). I encourage you to look at Psalm 27. The first six verses speak of POWER. God is our LIGHT in the DARKNESS; and boy, the forces that orchestrated the events of 9/11 were forces of darkness, indeed! (Jesus came as a LIGHT to the DARK world as the Gospel of John chapter 1 tells us.) Psalm 27 verses 2 and 3 speak of the wicked coming against us and even an army coming against us, but the Lord will give us the confidence to face this. If we'll see the Lord with all our hearts, He will lift us up and (see verse 5) set our feet upon a rock, as it were.

Verses 7 through 10 of Psalm 27 speak of God's LOVE. He will be our help and will not forsake us. In fact, verse 10 powerfully states that even if and when our mothers and fathers forsake us, God will be there to love us and take care of us. One (American) woman in the congregation today was deeply moved by this verse. I know her life story as she formerly attended First Assembly of God of Framingham where I pastored. Her father and mother literally DID forsake her, but she has experienced God's love and care. Today she shed some tears...tears of joy. Psalm 27:7 speaks of crying out to the Lord. THAT'S what America needs to do today! For three weeks after 9/11/2001 everything was totally different. People came to church. People prayed. People were kind to one another. People were patriotic. I (foolishly) thought at the time that it was a genuine change in our country. I was wrong. It lasted for three weeks, and then everything went back to "normal". We need to get rid of "normal"! We need to cry out to the Lord, seek His face, and have true revival!

The final verses of the Lord speak of A SOUND MIND. Listen, when you're afraid, your mind can play tricks on you. I wish I was one of those people who "sees the glass of water as half full" but typically I "see the glass as half empty". I'm almost as bad as a Church Board Member a pastor friend of mine told me about. The pastor asked his Board to consider their church and its challenges, and to comment on whether they saw the "glass" (the church and its problems) as half full or half empty. The Board Member told him the glass is empty, dirty, and had been loaded into the dishwasher! Over a year ago, I went through a dark and terrible depression. That's what wallowing in fear and taking your eyes off the Lord can do to you. Psalm 27 verse 13 (in the New King James Version) says, "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living." Yes, if we choose to neglect the Lord and His word and to dwell on irrational (or even rational) fears, we can become quite mentally sick. But when we trust and believe the Lord, when we give our whole hearts to Him and trust Him, then we have A SOUND MIND.

The very last verse of Psalm 27 speaks of waiting on the Lord. My, that is DIFFICULT! I don't like to wait! Today's Americans want everything instantly. We don't want to wait. But, as the old saying goes, "God has three possible answers to prayer: YES, NO, and WAIT." That's true. I don't like "WAIT". Yet, sometimes God calls us to WAIT. Think of Joseph in the Old Testament. He WAITED. He spent years as a slave and years in prison after being falsely accused of rape. (Did you ever see "JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAM COAT"? That is worth seeing!) And, think of Jesus, Himself. In his late twenties, He probably got up every day, went to the carpenter shop, built tables, chairs, and cabinets, and went to bed. And He did that day after day after day until it was time for His ministry to begin.

Yes, there's comfort on September 11. God does not want us to have a spirit of fear, but of POWER, of LOVE, and of A SOUND MIND! One Brazilian young man came up to me after the service and told me he reads Psalm 27 every day. That might not be a bad idea for all of us!