Sound of Faith

Guest (Male): I've just wanted to leave this open to the Holy Spirit, and I pray that if he wants to move in another way than what I have planned, I'll be sensitive enough to follow his lead. To start off, we would like to take this time to commemorate what happened a year ago today. I know you've been bombarded through the television with all kinds of pictures and memories and such, but we do want to take the first part of this to commemorate what happened because it is a turning point in America's history. Whatever happens from now on, this will be a pivotal time in the events that will play out in the time to come.

I want to begin by reading the poem that the Lord gave me last year in commemoration of the tragedy and those who suffered personally and are still suffering because of what occurred: September 11th. The sun rose up boldly in a blue-draped heaven o'er the Hudson River on September 11th, beaming on marble domes of Washington and brass-buttoned coats around the Pentagon. Upon the gleam of a plane in the summer set sky, warming the earth where scores would die, hid not its face beneath a black-draped heaven but silhouetted the skies of September 11th.

The winds blew softly across a blue-draped heaven where flags flapped peacefully on September 11th. A remnant of summer on the air still lay as Americans awoke to a busy workday. Kisses of schoolkids still dampened the faces of mommies and daddies off to workplaces. Goodbyes and giggles swirled upward to heaven till swept by the inferno of September 11th. September 11th, oh woeful day, when a wounded nation knelt to pray. Though a trillion tears could nary erase the blood-stained grief upon your face, yet these same tears will make us whole with healing waters wash our soul.

Till we in hope shall e'er remember the grace that held us all together, as we hand in hand across this land, with our bright flags unfurled, took our stand. In unity our brave voices rang, "God Bless America," we boldly sang. Oh patriotic pride, arise! Oh gleam of glory, dry our eyes! Oh Lord of light, shine forth from heaven and lift us o'er September 11th. At this time, I would like to ask everyone to stand, and we're going to pray for the families of those who were taken, whether it was at the Pentagon, in New York, or the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.

There's a lot of suffering that's still going on. There are a lot of people for whom the finality of it all is probably just hitting them today as they go to what they call Ground Zero. We want to pray for them. We want to pray that God will comfort them and that through it they will take hold of the Lord's hand, that he can lead them through the dark hour and the dark night of their soul. We want to pray for our leaders for the wisdom in the days to come because it's not over. It's just really begun. We need to know that God is leading and guiding our leaders, and we need to pray that they make wise choices.

Join hands with the one standing near you on either side and just agree with me in prayer. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus and we come at this solemn time where we take this time to remember and to commemorate the lives that were taken. Many were lives taken because they were heroes. Others went to work that day and never knew they would not be coming home. Father, we ask you to touch the hearts of the widows and the widowers, of the mothers and fathers, and of the children.

We ask you to touch the hearts of the brothers and sisters and the families and friends who have lost someone in this terrible thing. We ask you to give them courage and strength. If they do not already know you as their comforter, as the God of all comfort and grace, we pray, Lord, that in your divine mercy and love you would reach down and touch them and bring them to the cross. Bring them to that place, Lord, where healing flows, that place where forgiveness is birthed, the forgiveness that will allow us to pray for our enemies and allow us to stand and unite in love and in brotherhood.

We ask you, Lord, that you would draw people to salvation. We ask you that you would draw Christians to their knees. We ask you that you would draw the church into unity. We ask you, Lord, to bring us together with purpose and that we would understand and realize that it is righteousness that exalts a nation, and blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. We will stand up and give a witness and a testimony and not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ and not be ashamed to let our light shine before men.

We pray, Lord, that out of this tragedy good things will come. We pray that out of this tragedy people will come to know Jesus and those whose faith was weak will be strengthened. Those who were in darkness will come to light and those who have never known the truth will come to know that you, Lord Jesus, are the way, the truth, and the life. We pray for our leaders, our president, the vice president, the cabinet, the generals of the Pentagon, and those who lead the military forces, those who are advisors to the president, those who have his ear.

May they be wise counselors and may they have wisdom of the Lord. Lord, may the decisions that are made be wise choices for America. In Jesus' name, we ask it because even as you spoke in the ears of your servant Elisha that he could go to the king and tell the king what the enemy was about to do, you would whisper in the ears of your servants and those who have the president's ear to tell them and to warn them. You would expose the enemy, you would reveal where the enemy is, and, Lord, you would bring the enemy to justice.

We do believe in a just cause and a just war, and we want to protect our liberty, both our patriotic liberty and our spiritual liberty. We ask it all in Jesus' name, and let the church say amen. All day long we've been seeing pictures and we've been hearing the stories about Ground Zero. How many of you have caught the picture? It's been on many times, but a lot of the information behind it has not been on the secular news media. You'd have to go to Christian news to see it.

But that cross that they have there at Ground Zero in New York that's made out of that rusty old broken beam, how many have seen it with that rag draped over it? A few of you have. Some of you haven't. Be looking for it because they have little collages, and it's usually in any collage that you'll see of the events. You're going to see a rusty steel beam, jagged on the ends, but it is perfectly formed in the shape of a cross. It's just the perfect dimensions and ratio. The crossbar is not too high up or too far down that you have to use your imagination.

Just like you see there, it's the correct proportion of where the crossbar would have been. This rusty piece of steel you'll see in these pictures, and the story behind that is immediately after the terrible tragedy as they began to go in looking for survivors. This is in the early hours when they were still looking for survivors. And of course, nightfall came and that greatly hampered how far they could go. But as the daylight hours approached, one of the rescue workers came upon an opening that went down into a pit.

So he went down into that pit, and when he got in there, it was like going into an opening that he was actually able to walk in. He was amazed to see standing straight up out of the ground was this cross and over one end of it was a rag, like you see the cross with the shroud on it. Then he looked and on the ground lying around it were three more perfectly shaped crosses made out of the same steel. He couldn't believe it. He went out and he got other people to come in, and one by one they began to bring people in to look at it.

When I say people, I mean the rescuers. Others couldn't get there at that time. They began to call it God's house. Those men who were picking up body parts and those men that lost so many of their own firemen going in there, as you know, it was just devastating. They were in shock, they were in disbelief, and they were almost inconsolable. But they went in there and as they beheld that rusty broken beam, that cross, even in the midst of all that tragedy and chaos, a peace came over them and they were able to go back and do the work they had to do.

Eventually, they took that cross out of there and they found out by checking the steel on it that that steel had come from one of the steel beams in the first tower that fell. The thing about it was that in all of that destruction, that thing fell to the ground perfectly shaped like a cross, upright, perpendicular, with that cloth over it and three other crosses just like it on the ground. That's why they have mounted that cross, and you will now see flashes of it. Only the news isn't going to tell you about all of that.

They're not going to tell you how the people would come to that place and receive comfort. In the midst of all that, the cross spoke to them that God was there in the midst of all that, that Jesus is there, the peace of God was there to help them deal with what they had to deal with. We've heard a lot about Ground Zero, but I will tell you that the true Ground Zero was Calvary. It was Calvary that is the true Ground Zero because on Calvary, the perfect, just Son of God stretched out his arms on that crossbar.

He hung between heaven and earth to be the sacrifice. He suffered all the pain that could be suffered. He endured all the agony that could be endured. He took upon himself the weight of all the sins of the world, even these terrible people that we look at, these terrorists, and all of these wicked people. Jesus hung on that cross to bear their sin. All the suffering of the world, only the cross is the answer and Calvary is the true Ground Zero. How many say amen? So let's thank the Lord for Calvary and let's thank the Lord that even in the midst of such destruction, there's an answer.

If it brought comfort to those firemen and comfort to those paramedics and those workers, they were able to go from that point and do their job because they knew that there was strength there. People could pray, and sometimes they were to the point they didn't know how to pray, but that was that breaking point that allowed them to release all of those pent-up emotions and pain. You can take your burden to the cross and Jesus will take it for you. Amen. Let's turn in our Bibles to Matthew the fifth chapter, and we're going to look at verses 13 and 14, and we're going to read it together.

Verse 13: "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." We know that Jesus was the speaker here, and I want to look closely at what he said. The final part, we'll refer to the beginning later, but right now I want to look at the last part of this verse: A city set on the hill cannot be hid.

When I was asking the Lord which way to go because I didn't know whether to stay with the patriotic part or to get into the spiritual part, as I was in prayer, I heard the scripture just come right to me: A city set on the hill cannot be hid. I knew that was the scripture, but I didn't know what to do with it. Then the Lord began to bring things to me. I want to tell you that in a very literal way, our nation's capital, Washington DC, is a city set on a hill.

How many of you have ever noticed when you watch your news at night and you have the news reporters and they're standing there and the Capitol's in the background, they'll say such and such reporting from Capitol Hill. Sometimes they'll even shorten it down and they'll say up on the hill today, the senators met in secret session, or they'll say on the hill such and such happened. They always refer to it, and when you hear someone say on the hill, what do you immediately know they mean? They're referring to the Capitol building.

They're referring to the Capitol, the seat of government where the House of Representatives and the senators meet. Whenever we hear them say on the hill, we know exactly what hill they're talking about and that they're speaking of the Capitol. Washington DC in many ways is the highest seat of government for the entire planet. There is no higher seat of government politically speaking than Washington DC.