If you asked even the most inexperienced preacher who understood the Bible’s overall message why God would permit 9/11, they’d have a million answers.

*God doesn't control everything that happens in life.

*We live in a fallen creation.

*Things won’t be set right on earth until Jesus Christ comes back and sets up His kingdom.

*As the hearts of ‘evil men and seducers wax worse and worse’ and it is ‘fully set in them to do evil,’ perilous times will abound.

*Satan is working overtime today to prepare the minds of the masses for his Antichrist government.

On and on they could go. It’s a sermon any Bible student never runs out of material for because it is one of the core themes of the whole Book!

So get this. Yesterday’s New York Times reported that the Rev. Timothy J. Keller, senior pastor of the wildly popular (especially among young professionals) Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, accepted an invitation by the White House to deliver the sermon at a large 9/11 prayer and remembrance service held in lower Manhattan that was attended by President Bush and his wife, Laura.

This passage from the Times is so telling, I’m quoting it verbatim:

“As for Dr. Keller, given the task of addressing a church full of family members of the lost, not to mention the president, he said he initially pulled out the sermon he preached at his church on Sept. 16, 2001. But he recognized that the circumstances have changed, he said.

“In the initial aftermath of the attacks, he said, the city was laden with fear and uncertainty. Today, much of that has dissipated, though sorrow and, for many, anger persist. He decided to burrow anew into the difficult question “Why?”

“The question is impossible to answer completely, he said in his brief sermon. But Dr. Keller pointed to a theme that runs throughout Scriptures, that God identifies with those who suffer.

“ ‘We don’t know the reason that God allows evil and suffering to continue,’ he said. ‘But we know what the reason isn’t. We know what the reason can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he doesn’t care.’

“He went on to urge those in the audience to yearn, even if it was difficult to fathom or believe, for a future time, when everything would be made right.

“He cited a passage from the last book of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ when a character, Sam, awakes thinking all is lost but then sees his friend Gandalf. In his joy, he asks him, ‘Is everything sad going to come untrue?’

“The answer, Dr. Keller said, is ‘Yes.’

If this doesn’t perfectly demonstrate the apostate nature of the Christian church in our country today! Keller is an obvious pawn and more-than-willing participant in Satan’s “policy of evil.”

Through a search of my Word files on my computer, I was able to dig up some notes I took from a sermon my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill. (www.graceimpact.org) , gave last year on the anniversary of 9/11. Here they are in rough form:

Eph. 1:10—that's God's secret plan that we know all about. So the will of God's been completely revealed.

Rom. 8—God's purpose and He's going to accomplish it. He gives you the opportunity to respond to it positively or negatively, with faith or unbelief, but what He's planned to do He's going to do!

We know what God's will is. The will of the Father is to deliver us from this “present evil world.” That's why Jesus Christ gave Himself for us. We know the world isn't dying for love. The world's dying in spite of the greatest love anybody could ever know.

“God commended His love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” There's not a greater love you could ever have than that!

Now where’s God in tragedies and joys? When you win the lottery, or the hurricane wipes you out, He’s right where He's always been in the dispensation of grace; He's in the church the Body of Christ. He's working as His Word's believed and trusted and obeyed, so don't get idea God's out there judging the world.

The Bible says that in the dispensation of grace “God is reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” God isn't in the judging business today. And when the day comes for Him to pour out His Judgment and wrath on this evil world, He won't miss and He won't be late. The wrath is real, it’s just delayed.

When you leave this planet, either by the Rapture or death, you're going to leave everything here except your inner man and how much of the truth of God's Word you put in it and how you've let that truth live in you and mature you.

That's all you're going to take with you. That's where God's working today. That's where God is in these events and that's how He works. That's why Paul says, “For the love of Christ constrains us.”

Instead of blaming everybody else—instead of pointing over yonder—we rest in who God's made us in Christ and have His grace be sufficient.

“And though our outward man perish, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.” How's it renewed? “Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Day by day renewing our mind to the truth of His love and grace to us in Christ. And as we depend on it, trust in it, allow it to control our lives because we have our faith resting in it, Hs grace is sufficient.