GOD WITH US: REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: With Sermons from the time And current reflections

By Bernie Pippin

There are so many questions.

Where were you and what were you doing on September 11, 2001?

Why are there so many people in the world who hate us?

Why did God let this happen?

Why should God step in and protect us?

Isn't it more reasonable that God might treat us like He did the Israelite people?

Is there any hope for the future?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685173203

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GOD WITH US: REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

With Sermons from the time And current reflections

Bernie Pippin

Copyright © 2022 by Bernie Pippin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

All scriptures, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the New American Standard Version of the Holy Bible (NASB).

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Sermon 1

Children’s Sermon 1

Sermon 2

Sermon 3

Children’s Sermon 2

Sermon 4

Children’s Sermon 3

Sermon 5

Children’s Sermon 4

Contents

Acknowledgmentsv

Introductionvii

Sermon 1: Spiritual Implications of 9/11 (September 16, 2001)1

Children’s Sermon 1: What Are Terrorists? (September 16 and 23, 2001)7

Sermon 2: God Bless America! (September 23, 2001)10

Sermon 3: A Present Danger (September 30, 2001)18

Children’s Sermon 2: Presidents George (September 30, 2001)25

Sermon 4: The Wicked and The Righteous (October 7, 2001)28

Children’s Sermon 3: Cruella, the Evil One (October 7, 2001)37

Sermon 5: The New Covenant (October 21, 2001)39

Children’s Sermon 4: Powerful Name of Jesus (October 21, 2001)45

Conclusion: And Now…49

Hymns for the 9/11 Sermon Services55

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to my loving husband, Evan Pippin, and to all those who have helped me get my writings to publication.

Introduction

At some point in the summer of 2001, I was asked to fill the pulpit of my church. The pastor was going to be absent for several weeks, and I was training to be a licensed minister in my church, so this was an opportunity for me to serve. I was scheduled to begin my preaching responsibilities on September 16, 2001.

Generally speaking, the sermon for a Sunday service was based on the scriptures prescribed in the lectionary for the church. I probably began to plan my sermon for the sixteenth a week or two before that Sunday.

Then, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, happened. My son and I were driving to a dental appointment that morning. Things had been hectic as we prepared to leave, so we did not watch television as we normally would have. We did turn on the car radio after we were well on the way to our destination.

The radio program from KDKA in Pittsburgh was presenting a live broadcast about a tragic accident in New York City. An airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Everything was in chaos. The tower was still standing, but it was severely damaged and was on fire at the fairly high position where the airplane hit it.

We continued to listen to the reports and were astounded to hear that a second airplane had hit the second tower at nearly the same height as the first tower. Then the reality of what was true became clear: This was no accident! This was intentional! Our country was under attack!

Then the Pentagon was hit, and finally an airplane disintegrated in a field in South Central Pennsylvania. All air traffic was stopped.

What should we do? Were we in danger out on the road? Should we turn around and go home? We decided to continue to our appointment, but we were shaken.

The sermon that I had begun to prepare for Sunday, the sixteenth, as astute and insightful as it possibly might have been, never got completed. Instead, in light of the events of September 11, 2001, I wrote the sermon that I am presenting to you with the date September 16, 2001.

In the weeks that followed, the sermons for September 23, 2001; September 30, 2001; October 7, 2001; and October 21, 2001, were added.

It has now been over twenty years since the noteworthy events that we now know as 9/11. Early in 2021, God inspired me to pull out these sermons. As I read them over, I realized that they stood up fairly well to scrutiny after the intervening years. I present them to you and ask you to read them with an open heart and mind. I believe that God wants us to receive these messages. They are for those of us who experienced the trauma of the 9/11 attacks and for those who were too young to have experienced 9/11 firsthand.

The more than twenty years that have passed can give perspective to the first group, and the messages can be shared with the second group to provide them a perspective on the experience of those who lived through it.

Sermon 1

Sermon 1: Spiritual Implications of 9/11 (September 16, 2001)

This is a Sunday that presents a challenge to this sermon writer. The events of September 11, 2001 (9/11/01), just this last Tuesday, have become the most important events of the new millennium; and they rival most events in all previous world history. Some of you can remember living through the Pearl Harbor attack. It probably seemed to you, then, as though you would never see another day to compare with it. And yet, the attacks that we witnessed this last week, while they are strangely reminiscent of that day in 1941, are clearly more heinously disturbing to us, because the targets were not military ones and the goal, though it was ideological, quite obviously sought