9/11, Nineteen Years, and Two Options






Watching the 9/11 attacks play out again in real time on American soil, tears spilled. For the past 19 years, I've watched, reflected, remembered, and revered those who willingly gave their lives to save others on that beautiful blue sky morning. 

My mind is reeling, and my heart is racing as God not only continues to speak but continues to shake the pillars of our very foundation. Have we forgotten already?

Why does America continue to dismiss or ignore God's divine warnings and alarms, signifying that judgement is imminent if we do not return to Him and our spiritual roots? 

Do we even care?

When the door to 2020 opened, I had no idea I would read all of Jonathan Cahn's books, but I believe God drew me to choose them for such a time as this to open my eyes to deeper things and to further examine His Word. 

Throughout history, God has proven He's a covenant-keeping God. Throughout Scripture, He has displayed very vividly that He takes covenant making very seriously. He's revealed to me again and again that when a nation, who is called by His name, is defiant towards Him and rejects the truth, He will allow calamity to fall. Not out of hate, but out of extreme love, seeking to turn their hearts back to Him and avoid judgement. 

God's heart is mercy, grace, love, and forgiveness, but His character is also righteous and just, and when it comes to a nation who has turned her back on Him, He doesn't mess around.

Through the Father's mercy and grace, His patience, and His ever-narrowing window of opportunity, America has arrived at a crossroads of vast significance. We have only two options:

1. We can choose life through repentance and restoration or...

2. We can choose death through judgement. 

The choice is ours.



The spiritual blueprint of modern day America overlays the spiritual blueprint of ancient Israel in unprecedented ways. We're not an exact replica, but we do have impressive similarities. The Biblical warnings for Israel's return or God's promise of judgement are unveiled throughout the pages of Cahn's books. The re-playing of these warnings today in America are uncanny. From the first harbinger of this century (9/11) to the plague of 2020 (COVID-19) nineteen years later. As a nation, America has literally been playing with fire. 



A breach in our defense, pounced on by the terrorists plotting to destroy us, marked God's first shaking of America in the 21st century. A wake-up call for a nation to return to where she began. 

And where did America begin?

America was consecrated with a God-covenant much like Israel, set apart for God's purposes and glory, to live and follow in His ways. Just like Israel, we were placed on this earth to be a light - a city on a hill.

President Ronald Reagan spoke of America being a city on a hill, a representation of what Israel was set-apart to be. But Reagan also noted another who spoke of this metaphor, John Winthrop. 

Winthrop was the first to speak out loud the God-covenant over a small band of settlers just arriving in America, landing on the island in Massachusetts's Bay (where Logan Airport now sits). The exact place where the first terrorist got on the first plane to destroy the first tower on 9/11/2001. 

According to Cahn, and his tireless research of the ancient pattern and prophesies in the Scriptures, God's warnings of judgement begin in the place where a nation was consecrated to God. (The Harbinger II, The Return, chapter 33, The Island)

This is a portion of Winthrop's sermon/covenant proclaimed before God and everyone on the ship, the Arabella, as they landed on that island in Massachusetts's Bay. 

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. 

...The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

And to shut this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life and death, good and evil,” in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.

Therefore let us choose life, that we and our seed may live,by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity.

 John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in A Library of American Literature: Early Colonial Literature, 1607-1675, Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds. (New York: 1892)304-307.

Remarkable, isn't it? A faith-filled covenant with the Almighty, complete with the acknowledgement of blessing or curse, life or death, obedience or disobedience. The choice is us up to us. Which path will we choose?

For the past nineteen years, America has continued her refusal to adhere to the warnings, the shakings, and the on-going call to return. Nineteen years was a particular window of time given to Israel. When she dug in her heels and became even more defiant, God had no choice but to allow judgement to fall on them. Are we going to follow Israel down the same path toward destruction? If we don't humble ourselves, pray, seek God's face, and turn from our wicked ways, our great land will not be healed ( 2 Chronicles 7:14), and we will find ourselves staring into great judgement head on. 

Doom and gloom is not the heart of God. He wants His people to live life with abundant joy inside His will where real joy exists. His love is deeper than the ocean, wider than the heavens, and stronger than anything you can imagine. His story has always been about redeeming love.  Healing can happen if we will humble ourselves, repent of our sins, and turn our hearts back to follow His. 


I highly recommend Jonathan Cahn's books. I promise they are eye-popping, mind-boggling, and will bring you to your knees.

My Pleasure,

Melanie

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