The title of this article was emblazoned across the page 1 story in USA Today (September 21, 2001) as the mood of the US turned from shock and disbelief to anger and vengeance over the events of September 11. The story chronicled one of the many speeches of President Bush, who said, “Be ready… the hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud”. What a contrast to the same expression used by the Lord Jesus Christ, when he said, “The hour is coming, and now is , when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live… for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:25–29). As the US and its allies pursued ‘an eye for an eye’ in their hour of pride, the hour that is coming will see human pride and might brought low by the judgments of our Lord. (Isaiah 2:11; 40:4) And as surely as these judgments will be meted out upon the nations, we should not lose sight that, as “the time” came in the first century when “the house of God” was subjected to judgment (1 Peter 4:17), it will soon begin with the house of God in this present age.
Nothing prepared me for the ugly sight of what became known to the world as Ground Zero. As I stood at the police barrier in New York City just two weeks after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, I could not summon words to adequately express the shock and horror before me at the devasta…
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