Luke 13:2  And He answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate?  3  "I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  4 "Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?  5  "I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." (NASB)

     This sermon will speak directly to the events of this past week, addressing both of God’s kingdoms, the temporal and spiritual, the civil and the church.  It will be a teaching sermon in this respect.  It is crafted in such a way to speak to two concerns.  It will speak in an authentically Christian way about the two tragedies that have unfolded before our eyes this past week.  Yes, I said two tragedies.

     The first one is obvious to everyone.  At just before and after 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, Islamic fundamentalist terrorists crashed two commercial airliners into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.  Those two towers stood as monuments to capitalism, to a global economy, to prosperity, to freedom, and to western civilization.

     Not long after those first two planes struck, a third was crashed into the Pentagon, a symbol of America’s freedom and strength.  A little bit after that, a fourth plane crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.  In those terrible moments hundreds of people were killed.   But that was only the beginning.  As the nation looked, on the two towers came crashing down in what seemed like an unbelievable surrealistic movement killing  thousands of men, women, and children.

     The attack was that of militant Islamic zealots who were and continue to be bent on the destruction of every civil virtue for which our nation stands, not the least of which is the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience.  This attack concerns us as Christians for several reasons, but this morning I will only speak of a few of them.

     First we are concerned over the loss of human life and the suffering caused by such despicable and inhumane acts.  Many of our neighbors have perished and many more who are now suffering.

     Second, Christians ought to be concerned because this is an act of war against our nation and our government, whose principle function it is to govern the affairs of our land in such a way as to punish evil doers so that we may live in peace.  In this moment of history all Christians should take notice, for what has happened in recent years should serve as a lesson for us and our church.  There are parallels between that which has happened in the world to that which is happening in the Christian Church and in our own Lutheran Church.

     On Tuesday morning a war that was declared against our country more than ten years ago has finally imprinted itself on the psyche of the American people.  Some ten years ago some Islamic leaders, political and religious, called the Islamic nation to an Islamic jihad, a holy war against the United States of America.  Notice I said, it was more than ten years ago.

     But having won the war against Iraq in Desert Storm so quickly and easily, the American people went back to sleep as far as the middle east and Islam were concerned.  The war was over.  Victory was ours; but the Islamic terrorists did not see it that way.

     In ‘93 they attempted to bring down the Word Trade Center by a car bomb in the parking deck below.  In the same year our government thwarted a conspiracy to blow up the United Nations, the Holland Tunnel, and various federal buildings in New York City.  They stopped another conspiracy in 1995 to bomb an American passenger aircraft over the Pacific.  There were two successful bombings against American military personnel in Saudi Arabia in 96.  Saudi Arabia thwarted our efforts to investigate and apprehend those responsible.  On August 7, 1998, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were blown up.  The Sudan saw another attack.  On October 12th, 2000 the American warship, the USS Cole, was boat-bombed while in harbor at Yemen.  Last year a terrorist was arrested as he tried to enter the United States through Canada in Washington state.  Just recently he was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. That’s just the past ten years don’t forget Lockerbie, Scotland.

     The point is that there have been people at war with the United States and everything for which it stands for a very long time.  The only people who haven’t taken this war seriously have been the citizens of the United States and elements within our own government.

     Elements within our culture and government have been too busy waging war against decent hard-working families and businesses in the United States through unnecessary regulations designed to restrict more and more of our freedoms and to take one and give to another.  Radical environmentalists, feminists, gay rights leaders, racially motivated activists, and militant animal rights activists have been attacking common-sense decent people with the support and aid of many of our elected and appointed leaders.

     In this realm there is, of course, a place for righteous anger.  In the realm of the state there is a place for justice, an eye for an eye, for as the Holy Spirit has written through the Apostle St. Paul, [the government] “does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a servant of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.”  So much for the kingdom on the left.

     At present our nation seems to have been awakened from its slumber.  It seems that she is repenting of her failure to protect her citizens.  It remains to be seen whether the resolve that is just now being manifested to join the battle in earnest against terrorists will lead to the proper and just execution of this war.  As citizens of the United States and as Christian people who are suppose to be concerned about the welfare of your neighbor, your children, and grand children, I leave it to you to do what is good and right and just in the civil realm in light of this state of war.

     Now, my reason for this protracted lesson in modern history and political commentary is to illustrate that what has taken place in the kingdom of the left has its own parallel right here in the kingdom of the right, the Church.   This week we have witnessed not one, but two tragedies, and when it comes to matters of the soul, to people’s eternal destiny, to matters of sin and grace, and good and evil, and heaven and hell the second tragedy is so much worse than the first.

     The first national tragedy is being used this very day as an excuse for millions of so-called Christians to set aside the true and uncompromising confession of Jesus Christ as the One and Only True God and Savior for another seemingly virtuous proposition.  Simply stated it is this; “We all, Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, Agnostics and Christians, worship the same God.  We just do it in different ways and call him, her, or it by different names.  What binds us together,” they say, “is our common humanity and our common faith in one another.”

     In every place and in every community this week we are seeing “interfaith services” wherein people of all faiths and religious traditions have joined together to offer prayers to an unknown and “unpredicated” supreme being, who is without a true name, without true form, and without any sure word upon which we can rely in the hour of our need.  And don’t think that some of our church people haven’t had a hand in this.  But, this is not the time to relegate God to some abstract transcendent unknowable being.

     “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.”  (Heb. 4:15-16)

     This week thousands of people, Americans, died at the hands of evil men.  But I tell you that this week something more sinister, something far more subtle, and something more devilish has come to light.  In church buildings once dedicated solely to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in churches who once worshiped the Only True God who became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and TRUTH, God was reduced to some abstract concept and fleeting feeling.

     On Tuesday the United States of America woke up from its sloth and found itself in the midst of war.   It hadn’t been paying attention to the war that has been waging against it all along.   Its government, liberal and conservative, and its citizens, rich and poor, now seem united in what William Bennett has called “A moment of ethical and moral clarity.”

     But the church, the so-called Bible believing Christians, the conservative evangelicals, and above all, the so-called Lutherans still sleep in a shallow spiritual sloth, not knowing, not seeing, and not dealing with the spiritual war that rages around them.  Like so many in our government and culture before this defining moment, Christians, congregations, and our own synod have concerned themselves with unnecessary and freedom-strangling spiritual regulations, exercises, and programs all intended to make us feel like a holy and better people.  Money, politics, power, and programs have replaced fidelity to the Word of God.

     A war is raging about us, yet so many within our own midst have taken their leave of the full counsel of God, the true doctrine and truth of Jesus Christ and His Word.   Many have taken their leave from sound church tradition, messages of sin and grace, Law and Gospel, death and judgment, church discipline, Bible memory work, the study of Holy Scripture, the language of the Lutheran Confessions, and the lessons of church history.  Above all, so many have taken their leave from total dependance on Word and Sacrament and regular church attendance in faithful congregations wherein they may confess their sins and receive absolution.  So many among us have taken their leave so that they can play, entertain, and earn more.

     There has always been a spiritual war for the Christian.  We see that in both the Old and New Testament.  But, the war has escalated in our day.  Biblical morality has been under siege for a long time, both inside and outside the visible church.  Now the truth of God’s Word and the true nature of Christ are challenged at every turn.  And we in the church . . . we have been more than a little occupied with recreation, collecting things, and “playing church.”   We haven’t prepared ourselves, our children, our congregations, or our synod for this war. We haven’t put on the full armor of God so that we can stand firm.

     Did you hear the words of God in the assigned Epistle reading, 2 Corinthians 10: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,  for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”  Tell me, have we done this?  I tell you no!  We have not taught ourselves to destroy every lofty thing and foolish speculations.  We have not taught our children what they need to know to live in an increasingly spiritually dangerous world.

     The towers of men, be they skyscrapers representing the wealth and power of men, or grand philosophies, or worship services that can only address God as some kind of abstract super-cosmic being who can only comfort trouble souls with a pail full of platitudes, cannot stand.  They will always fall.  They will always fail.  They will always crush the souls of men.

     I cannot tell you why God permitted, or ordained the attack of Tuesday morning.  I cannot tell you why God permits, or even ordains suffering on an individual level let alone on such a magnitude that we have seen this past week.  I can give you answers about sin and God’s curse.  But when it comes to why “this” and not “that;”  why this one lives and that one dies, I cannot answer those questions.  These things belong to the hidden will of God for no one could bear to see what He sees, or to know what He knows.  Learn from the Gospel reading and flee anyone who even tries to divine the hidden will of God based on what they see.

     What I can tell you is that God uses these moments, not merely as moments of moral and ethical clarity, but our heavenly Father uses these moments as moments that demand and sometimes bring forth repentance, a turning away from the gods of this world, and to our Lord and Savior, Whose Name is above all other names being invoked this week.

     In these moments you will be tempted by family and friends to make excuses for God.  This challenge will come especially from family and friends who have stopped attending church.  They do this to justify their forsaking of Christ.  You will be tempted to offer a defense for what God has permitted or done this past week.  But I tell you, no place in the Old or New Testament does God explain Himself in these matters and you should not either.  When tragedy struck the Galileans and the people of Siloam, Jesus did not offer a defense for His  heavenly Father’s actions.  Jesus uses the event as a call to repentance.

     “Do you suppose that these Galileans [Americans] were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate?  3  I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  4  Or do you suppose that those eighteen [five thousand] on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem [middle east]?  5 I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

     Those people upon whom the Twin Towers fell were not worse sinners than others.  I am sure there were many devout Christians among them.  I am sure there were many people who lived an outwardly righteous life.  I don’t know why them and why now.

     What I do know is that all tragedies, personal and national, are occasions and even instruments of God to bring us to repentance and to the Tower that will never fail, that will never fall, the Tower that cannot be brought down by godless men, terrorists or ecumenists.  The towers of men will eventually fall.  Proverbs says it this way. “A rich man's wealth is his strong city, And like a high wall in his own imagination.”  But “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.”

     The Cross of Good Friday is that strong Tower.  The Name Jesus Christ is the Rock of our Salvation. the foundation upon which the church is built and not even the devil will over come it.

     That Tower, that Name, was once raised on the top of Mount Calvary to crush our true enemies sin, death, and the devil himself, as God had promised.  “I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall crush you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

     This is not the time to grow timid in our confession.  This is not the time to spit and sputter and make excuses for God.  Jesus said it,  “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”  “If you  abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine  and  you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

     We are involved in a holy war, but this holy war was fought and won by Jesus Christ.  This war was won by doing exactly the opposite of what was done September 11, 2001. This war was won because Jesus Christ laid down His life to save ours.  “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

     Certainly what we have witnessed this past week is a national tragedy.  It binds our government to wield the sword with such harshness that others will pause before they consider harming our neighbors and our children.  That is the principle function of the government.  It is to hinder wicked men.  It is not suppose to enable them.  I do not wish to make light of what has been done here to so many and to our nation.

     But I will not stand by, nor should any true Christian, certainly no genuine Lutheran, and allow the Truth of God’s Word and the sacrifice of God’s Son our Lord to be mocked and degraded at the precise moment the world needs to hear God’s saving Truth, His Law and Gospel, and the call to worship the One and Only True God, enfleshed in Christ Jesus.

     No true Christian should stand by or along the side of those who wish to make the Gospel a victim of the terrorists, by allowing truth and error equal footing in the church.

     Little children, do not be afraid.  It is true these are uncertain times.  The world is an increasingly dangerous place.  But, come what may you have been born of the Water and the Spirit.   Your sins are forgiven.  The God who is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is our Mighty Fortress.  The words you sang are true, “And they take our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, Let these all be gone, yet they have nothing won, the kingdom ours remaineth.”  Your feet have been placed at the foot of God’s Tower.  The name of that Tower is Jesus Christ and He will never be felled.