"There are things I thinks we should do in order to really put 911 in perspective, so that we don't become complacent and numbed by the experience, only to have to repeat it again. The greatest danger to this country is not that we do experience it; it is that we do not learn enough from it, so that we end up having to experience it yet again. So I want to bring four words today that I think will help summarize for me what I think our responsibilities are and the first one is to remember. To remember, and not just to remember what happened, but to remember why it happened and to remember who made it happen. Most of us at this point, we know what happened: airplanes were hi-jacked. They were used as weapons and flown into buildings. One was going to be flown into either the capitol or the White House, when some extraordinary and amazingly brave passengers, who knew they were taking their own lives away, rushed the cockpit, grabbed the controls, and prevented that plane from flying into other populated areas and it crashed near Shanksville PA.
One of the people on board that plane is the husband of a good friend of mine, Deana Bernette. Her husband, Tom Bernette, was one of the five who rushed the cockpit. We know what happened. But why did it happen? We need to remember why it happened. It happened because in this world there is an evil religious system that is a perversion of even the religion it claims to represent. Let us quit being politically correct and be honest with our children and future generations and say jihadism is an evil directed toward killing every last one of us! I do not fault all Muslims of the world. It is not representative of most. But it is representative of those that believe that every last one of us must die in order for them to have fulfillment. The difference between what they believe and what I believe as a believer and follower JESUS CHRIST, is that I believe that JESUS came to give life to everybody. They believe that their god came to give death to everyone who does not subscribe to their twisted perverted sense of exclusivism. I'd rather follow a God who gives life than one who gives death to children and to mothers and fathers all over this world.
We must remember that it happened because there is evil. And we face an enemy that is not simply hoping that they can destroy our economy, but so they can take every last breath that we breathe. The naivete that we live with sometimes in our culture, in thinking that our greatest possible threat is we'd lose 401K. Look I don't want to lose everything I've worked hard to achieve. but the benefit I have in life is I started out with absolutely nothing. I know I can live there, not as pleasurably. But I've been there before. It's stuff, things. We need to understand that the threat against is not a threat to our 401K, or to our stock portfolio, or even to our jobs. The threat that exists to us because of what happened to us 10 years ago on this day, is a threat to our very existence as a human people. Nothing less than our destruction will bring satisfaction to those who are committed to the idea that any who do not bow their knees and give allegiance to the god of jihad, should and will be killed."
JESUS told His disciples at the Last Supper, "Remember Me." He didn't say, "I'd like for you to build some schools or build hospitals", He just said "remember Me," ...not to forget who He was and what He had done. It's a great message for us on this day, 10 years later, to remember."
The second word I would say is the word repeat. And by repeat I mean, to repeat this message, primarily so that our children and our grandchildren who may not have personal memories of it, will understand what happened, and why it happened and who made it happen. The greatest danger of anyone's history, is that they would not learn the lessons of it and would live to have to repeat it.
We need to repeat the lessons. Our children need to understand what happened. They need to understand what it means to be an American. I want our kids and our grandkids and future generations to realize what an incredible blessed privledge it is to live in a country where they make they own choices about what they want to do with their lives, what job they want have, where they want to live, how they want to be educated, how much education they'd like to have.
I'd like for them to grow up believing that this is a nation that was founded by people who on their faces and knees before a holy GOD, asked that GOD would give them the courage to stand against tyranny and they would be able to declare their independence. Not an independence for political superiority, but an indepence for personal and spritual freedom. I'd like them to understand America is the light on the hill. That it is a unique country and they could go all over the world and they would be hardpressed to find a place where they could start out with absolutely nothing and one day own a company.
I like them to understand that this is a place where women can get a education and are not considered to be second class citizens. And even where it took us a long time; an ungodly long time, and a a disgustingly long time to finally come to a position of understanding it, that people of color in the country are considered fully equal and are no longer considered second class or not fully people. I'm glad we finally got there and in my lifetime. I just wish we had done it sooner. But thank GOD we have a country that finally did get that right! I want our children to have repeated to them the important messages. We cannot shelter our children from the harsh realities in which they live. And we shouldn't shelter them from them. We cannot isolate them from truth. We must insulate them for truth. They need to know what happened, why it happened. They need to know who did it. But they need to know all those things so that they will be resolved that it never gets repeated
There's a third word I think of and it's the word restore.You remember how in those days after the attacks, there was a different spirit in this country. People did not discuss politics in a harsh and bitter and rankerous way. In fact you really didn't hear people talking about conservatives and liberals, democrats & republicans, and the left & the right. What we talked about was we were Americans! And what mattered to us was not so much the small little things that separated us ideologically, but the big thing that tied us together; that we were Americans who loved our country and our flag. Every where we went flags! Everybody had a flag; on their cars, on their homes and businesses. I've never seen so many flags in my life. And it wasn't a phony sense of just sort of put upon patriotism. It was the authentic sense of understanding that if your going to attack the United States of America, you just awakened a sleeping giant and will pay dearly for it! I remember that spirit we had and I also remember the level of kindness and civility that we experienced that we had never seen before.
I think there are somethings we need to restore. And frankly it would be a wonderful thing in the country if we would restore at least the spirit of oneness and unity that we did understand and have after 9/11. Of all the horrible things that happened, that was a positive thing. When I see the the kind of absolutely irreparably divided atmoshere that we have in our political system today, it grieves me. because I do not see people saying what can we do to solve problems and make our total country stronger. It's what can we do to beat those guys and keep them from beating us. For at least a while we were one country. I pray we would restore it.
There is a forth word. That word is repent. Repent is a good word; not a pleasant word; not a fun word. It means to turn from evil. It means to make a 180 degree. It means if your headed south, you start going pure north. Repent means that we change who we are, to be where GOD wants us to be, rather than ask GOD to change, so He can join in with us.
I recently heard a secularist ...whose comment was, "don't you think that we need to make religion more up to date and sophisticated and more in tune with the modern world? As I listened to him, it was if he was saying, " can't we just kind of form GOD into the image that we have become?" In history when we try to form our own god in our image, it never works out real well. We are to repent from our ways in order to adopt His. In the aftermath as we remember and reflect upon 9/11, I would like think that maybe there is time in this country that at least the children who follow JESUS would be willing to say the real answer to America's ills is not political reform, but rather it's personal repentance and individual revival of spirit.
We all remember where we were that day. We're touched, we're changed by it. but not enough. Because as we look at the world in which we now live. the dangers are still there. The divisions are deeper than they have ever been. And I believe that rather than us simply talking about what happened that day and those horrible horrible moments for the victims, we really can't do justice to their memory unless we truly repent and we become one nation under GOD, indivisible, where liberty truly exists for all.
...so many on that day thought nothing of themselves and thought so much of those who were around them. Rick Rescrola was responsible for over three thousand people (Morgan Standley employees) getting out of danger on September 11. But he himself gave his life in order to do it. When I think of his story, I realize, that his is the story of so many on that day, who though nothing of themselves, and thought so much of those around them. As heroic as Rick Rescrola was, the only thing he could save them for was their physical life, JESUS came to this earth and he came so that cross that Dave Silverman thought was just a piece of rubble; He came so that every sin, and every evil, and every horrible thing that has ever been thought or done could be placed on that cross, to die with JESUS, so that sin could be defeated. And all it required of us is for us to hear Him, listen to Him, and allow Him to take death upon Himself so that we could have life. Rick Rescorla and many of the heros of 9/11 could get people to physical safety, but they could not deliver unto them eternal life. That's something that JESUS and only He, can do. He's been doing it now for thousands of years and He can still do it today.
I cannot promise you that you will live a life free from danger. I cannot tell you today that we will not be attacked again. I cannot say that one day you'll be shopping at a mall, and it could be that a bomb is set off where you're shopping. Or that the event you're attending is attacked. I don't know. Or that an airplane your in, is shot down. I don't know. but here's what I know. If there is no one like Rick Rescorla to save you that day, to keep you on this earth, JESUS CHRIST is there, who can give you everlasting life, even if you don't make it. You know what? That'll drive our enemies nuts knowing that the worst they can do to us only takes our life physically but can never take our life spiritually! And if you really want to know how we can best remember the victims of 9/11 and the horrors the horrible events of 9/11, it's not just to have an emotional moment. It's to have a spiritual encounter with JESUS CHRIST. And commit that no matter what happens to us or even our country, we shall live forever and forever.
Would you pray with me? Join with me in a prayer for our country, that we will not forget.
LORD it's been ten years this day; ten years ago, this very hour. Smoke was billowing from Ground Zero and a hole in Shanksville PA. and even in what was considered the impregnable walls of the Pentagon. Thousands of our fellow citizens had been killed. Totally innocent people, who went to work that day thinking they would go home and catch with their sons, or cook spaghetti for their families, never left those buildings. Men who got on that airplane, thinking they were going to a business meeting, never met their clients. And ten years later LORD, we pray that we've learned something from it. That we've not been so foolish that we would become immune and numb. That some how that our emotions would scarred over with callous indifference, but rather that we would be awakened, renewed; that we would repent of our own indifference. And that today we would make a fresh new commitment to put the really important things in life first foremost. That we would understand that what we do for eternity matters a whole lot more than anything else that we do. That we need to be prepared to face it and hopefully take as many people with us as we can. We thank You for the heros, like Rick Rescorla, for the firemen, the policemen, the first responders, who gave their lives that day, not because they necessarily wanted to, but because they were willing to. But we thank You even more for JESUS who can do more than save us physically, but can save us eternally. If we don't remember that, we really should be pitied. Rise in us that spirit LORD, not of defeat, but of hope and optimism, that there is nothing on this earth, that can ultimately defeat you, because greater than He that is in us then he that is in the world. We pray this in the name of JESUS. Amen." — Mike Huckabee speaking at Cornerstone Church, Nashville Tenessee, September 11, 2011
