On September 11, 2001, we were living on the campus of a Baptist seminary in Ndu, Cameroon. Less than three weeks after our arrival with six children in tow (and having suffered a car accident our first full day in the country), we were shocked when a fellow missionary informed us of the terrorist attack in New York (he did not yet know about the Pentagon or Flight 93).

That evening I opened my Bible to the next Scripture in the Bible Unity Reading Plan and read of God’s destruction of His own temple, His own city. Amazed at God’s provision of just the right text for the day, I continued to the following day’s reading in the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah (the most likely author) weeps over the destruction of Jerusalem – the slaughter of women and babies, the abandonment of His people by God, the tearing down of the temple (note: at that time the temple was older than any building in Washington DC is today, and more important to the Jews than the White House, the Capitol, and the Washington Monument – combined – are to us). God had warned the nation of this coming judgment through Jeremiah himself, saying that their denial of Him would inevitably lead to their destruction (Jeremiah 22:7-9). Nevertheless, the horror overwhelms the prophet:

The LORD has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes…. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!… Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street. Look, O LORD, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity. (From Lamentations 2:17-21)

“You have killed them.” Jeremiah does not sugarcoat this tragedy by denying God’s sovereignty and responsibility. God has brought it about, using evil men fulfilling their sinful desires to accomplish His – yes – good and perfect will (Habakkuk 1 and 2). He is sovereign; He is responsible; He is good.

When facing disasters and tragedies, in our arrogance we often try to put ourselves in the Judge’s seat and pretend to bring God to the prisoner’s dock to charge Him with doing evil. “You could have stopped this, God! And You didn’t. So You must not be good, or You must not be sovereign.” But we are not wise, impartial judges; we are condemned evildoers. He is the One Who is light, and in Whom is no darkness at all; when we, by assuming the Judge’s seat, implicitly claim to be without disqualifying sin, we deceive ourselves, we preemptively call God a liar, and we prove that there is neither truth nor desire for truth in us (1 John 1:5-10). By ignoring God’s revelation about Himself (He is pure, sovereign and good!) and about us (our hearts are deceitful above all things!), we engage in circular reasoning: we assume that God is a liar and that we are in a position to judge Him before the proceedings begin. This is just a kangaroo court.

If we are to rightly consider tragedy and evil, we must acknowledge this truth: We don’t deserve to live. We exist by God’s mercy, and by that mercy alone. The only reason you and I draw breath today is that God’s perfect Son, who lived the life we should have lived, was scourged and nailed and hung naked on a cross to die a shameful, horrible death. God “has done what He purposed” (Lamentations 2:17): He did what He purposed in destroying Jerusalem, in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in every natural disaster – and in sending His Son to the Cross. As we will consider this Sunday, “Our God … does all that He pleases” (Psalm 115:3). And in addition to exercising righteous judgment, He pleases to offer to all rebels, to all evildoers, to every one of us, the gift of His crucified and risen Son. He offers to us through that Son His New Covenant, under which He will be our God and we will be His people, and He will never turn away from doing good to us; He will put the right fear of Himself in our hearts so that we never turn from Him (Jeremiah 31:34, 32:40). To all who accept His offer, He makes this promise: Through whatever evil we face, through whatever setbacks we encounter, through whatever pain we endure, He will stand beside us. Furthermore, all that pain and suffering will work in us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

There are many important lessons from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that we should consider on this twentieth anniversary. But none is more important than the biblical truth of God’s working all things together for the good of His people and the glory of His Name.

So join me in prayer:

Father, help us to believe this truth and to live consistently with it – to weep over sin and evil and sorrow, to fight the sin and evil in our own hearts, and to trust You throughout. Deepen our confidence in You, our trust in Your Word, so we might know that even the greatest sorrow and the most severe tragedy we face cannot compare to the sorrow and tragedy of the Cross – and the greatest joy and delight we face in this life cannot compare to the coming joy of being presented to Jesus as His perfected and renewed Bride at His coming. Save us from arrogance; exalt the Cross and the New Covenant in our minds; comfort us with Your love; show us Yourself.