What I Learned on My Summer Vacation (2001)
Preaching shortly after September 11, 2001, Tom Shrader draws on Daniel 4, James 4, and Romans 8:28 to anchor believers in three doctrinal truths: God is sovereign over all events, life is a vapor, and God works all things together for good for those who love Him. He presses the congregation to consider the eternal destination of those who died in the attacks, insisting that heroism does not save and that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ. Tom closes by urging believers to examine their own lives and seize the moment as a mission field, since the crisis has left people spiritually open and searching.
“God either caused this or allowed this. If he didn't cause this, or he didn't allow it, then he isn't God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: What I Learned on My Summer Vacation
Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 34 min
Themes: sovereignty of God, tragedy, fear, evangelism, salvation, eternal life, mission, hope, grieving a loss, feeling anxious, questioning God, new believer, seeker, parent, adult, struggling with fear
Scripture: Isaiah 55:8-9, Daniel 4:34-35, James 1:12, James 4:13-15, Romans 1-3, Romans 3:10-12, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 8:28, John 14:6, Acts 4:12, 1 Timothy 2:5
Theological Themes: divine sovereignty, soteriology, salvation by faith alone, eschatology, eternal destination, providence, Romans 8:28, the brevity of life
Full Transcript
What I Learned on My Summer Vacation
This morning is a significant time for me because I get to talk about whatever I want to talk about. This is the fifth annual installment of "What I Learned on My Summer Vacation." I seldom truly relax on vacation because I'm always thinking about what I'm going to talk about when I get back. At least part one was a no-brainer this year — it's rather obvious. We'll take two or perhaps three weeks on this topic, depending on how things come together.
First Observations: Distance and Perspective
Let me make some quick general observations. The first is that a picture is worth a thousand words — what you just saw in that video is more powerful than anything I could describe. Susan and I had that same realization when we heard about the terrorist attack on the radio and then stopped and actually saw the pictures. Everything changed for us in that moment. We saw the true depth of it.
Distance softens things. As we moved further east, we saw a whole different reaction to these events. The further away I am from something, the more disengaged I am, the less entangled I am in it. That distance can give greater perspective because I'm not emotionally involved, but it can also distort the way I feel. I find that out where we are, things are being trivialized just a little — there's a sense of "just nuke them and we're done." That is not the attitude you encounter on the east coast. It is very different there.
The Drive Home
We need each other. When Susan and I were driving — most of you know we were in Washington and had no way to get back other than a Kia — God provided that Kia for us, and we drove 2,300 miles in it. Some of you have asked what it was like. I don't know if you saw the movie *The Right Stuff*, but when John Glenn reentered the atmosphere, that's what the Kia was like.
What happened is that Susan and I were talking as we came back, processing everything through our own grid. I did not realize until last Sunday morning at eight o'clock the effect these events were having on so many other people. I simply didn't have other people I knew around me during that time.
The Bar for Terrorism Has Been Raised
The bar for terrorism has been raised. My sense is that they have played the airplane card, and a hijacking can never be the same again. You saw that in the four hijackings — the first three planes reached their targets, but on the fourth, once the passengers understood what was happening and heard what was going on, everything changed. Two or three weeks ago, if I had been on a plane that was hijacked, I would have said to Susan, "Let's just be quiet and see what happens." Now it would be a whole different perspective. I think what I'd say is, "All the big guys go first, then the women, then the children." They have played that card out, and they will be looking for new ways — more intense and probably more hideous ways. There is a sense in which we are going to get a glimpse of perhaps what it feels like to live in Israel.
The Leaders Are Serious — Prepare for the Long Haul
The leaders are really serious, so you better get ready for the long haul. From the very beginning, the atmosphere and environment in this country has been galvanized in part by the president, his cabinet, and his leadership. They are very serious. I want to make this point without being political, because this isn't a political point. This isn't new. These groups have been doing bad things for a long time, and we have largely put up with it — after the embassy bombings, after the attack on the USS Cole.
I saw an interview with Bill Clinton this week, and he essentially said, "You just need to understand, we tried to get these guys. They're really hard to get." Let me give you two columns — column A and column B. Column A: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Janet Reno, Madeleine Albright, Bill Cohen. Column B: George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld. Column B is not going to say they're hard to get and leave it there. There is a sense in which the people in column B have been prepared all their professional lives for this moment.
My sense — and I'll likely be proven wrong — is that bin Laden is going to be easier to get than people think, and there is a broad coalition coming together around that goal. But that is not what the president said. He said we are going to get the terrorists, those who harbor them, and those who allow this to take place in their countries. That means Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Sudan. The Pakistanis will help get bin Laden, but if we attack Syria, the Pakistanis are out. This is going to be very long, very hard, and very costly, and much of it will not be fought in ways you can see.
Get Ready
I don't want to frighten you, because I know that isn't effective. But I want you to understand that these are truly dangerous people who do not care about the Geneva Accords. They are going to capture our men and women, torture them, video it, and send it back to us. You better get ready. I better get ready, because it will be unlike anything I have seen before.
Doctrine Is Essential in Uncertain Times
I want to make a central point and then give you a few things to make sure you don't miss in the midst of all this. Here is my point: doctrine is essential, especially in uncertain times. If I am not doctrinally grounded, I am simply blowing in the wind.
God Is Sovereign
In uncertain times, we are susceptible to any thought—especially any thought that gives some sense of comfort, even if that comfort is artificial. Three things anchor us, and these are things you know if you have been around with us.
The first is that God is sovereign. That word "sovereign" means, according to Webster, above or superior to all others, supreme in power, rank, and authority. God does as He wills and as He chooses, and His plans are carried out and thwarted by no person, no government, no one. Doctrine gives us that. Doctrine allows us to rise above the circumstance.
In a time like this, we desperately need to know the truth. We need to know what God says. In Isaiah 55, God says, "My ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." We are so immersed—understandably so—in the circumstances and things around us that we desperately need to rise above them and see things as they really are. Scripture allows us to do that, and when we do, we realize that God is sovereign.
At the end of Daniel chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar is giving a testimony. Remember Nebuchadnezzar—one of, if not the most powerful man in the whole world. He was a builder who had constructed a magnificent city, an extraordinary palace, and gardens that were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. His favorite song—the one he loved to hear played every time he walked into a room—was essentially "How Great I Art." That was his anthem. He believed he was something special, and he demanded that others bow down and worship him.
Then one day, while Nebuchadnezzar was boasting about all he had built, God struck him with a disease. For a period of seven years, he literally lived like a cow—naked in the field, eating grass. At the end of that period, he came to his senses. Here is what he said: "My reason returned, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation." God is in absolute, total control. He raises up. He puts down. God is sovereign.
Things Are Temporary
The second thing is this: things are temporary. Somehow, at least right now, that truth seems more real than it ever has. Scripture is filled with references to it, constantly calling us away from temporary things and directing our focus toward the eternal.
James says it this way: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow, for you are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes." A little earlier in the same book, in chapter one, verse 12, James writes that the rich man, in the midst of his pursuits, will fade away—right in the middle of them.
I am not trying to scare you. I simply want you to see this. On the 11th of September, there were men in the midst of their pursuits. They grabbed their briefcases and their Starbucks, walked into the building, got in the elevator, and said, "93, please." They got to their desks, put on their headsets, sat down with their coffee, looked out the window—and there was a plane coming at their building. Their lives would never be the same. For about 6,300 of them, they were dead. Life is a vapor. All of this is temporary.
James goes on to say, "Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills.'" God willing. In other words, write your plans in pencil and understand that God is the eraser. All of this is temporary.
Here is something worth observing. The more heavily invested you are in the things of this world, the more tragic these events seem on a personal level. Yes, the loss of life is horrific. Yes, the fact that our men and women will go to war—and that people will be killed on both sides, inevitably including innocent people—is awful. But consider what some are calling the real tragedy: "Have you seen my pension plan and what this is doing to it?" The more heavily invested you are in this world—not just materially, but if this world is all there is—the more devastating this becomes.
I watched the stadiums fill up, and I watched people singing "God Bless America" who no more know God than a piece of wood. Their lives are shaken desperately. Why? Because there is no foundation. They do not know God. They are invested entirely in this world and are scared to die—because everything they have is here.
God Works All Things Together for Good
The third thing is this: God works all things together for good. The president actually quoted this verse recently. The tragic thing was that he only quoted the first half of it, and at that point, it is better not to quote it at all. He said, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good," and stopped there. I understand that as a politician you cannot always speak with full precision, but that is not what the verse says.
I am certain there were people listening who heard "God causes all things to work together for good" and thought, "That is not the complete verse, is it?" So for whom does God work all things together for good? For Americans? For Republicans? For Democrats? We know the answer—and I am only joking, so please do not email me.
God's Sovereignty Over All Things
All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Is that everybody? Absolutely not. Now, look closely at that verse. In my Bible, I have the word *fact* written by it. It is a fact. I am not guessing. I am not hoping. It is not intuition. It is not hearsay.
We know that God causes all things to work together for good. This verse doesn't say God causes all things. We know He doesn't cause evil or sin, but He takes everything in this world and works them together for good for a specific group of people — those who love God and those who are called according to His purpose, those who know Him in a personal way through His Son, Jesus Christ.
This is a very important verse for us because if we had no other verse from the Bible but this one, we would know something about God that is so important in moments like this. We would know that God is in control. God has to be all-powerful and all-knowing for this verse to be true. If God is going to work all things together for good, then He has to know all things in order to work them together. And if He lacks the power to work them together, then being all-knowing alone has no value.
God Was Not Caught Off Guard
Make no mistake about it — God was not sitting and looking and suddenly got distracted over in Paris and then looked back to find planes going into the World Trade Center. That did not happen. God was not sitting in heaven saying, "Look at that. This totally takes Me by surprise." God knew exactly what was going to happen. God understood exactly what was going to take place.
Set those incidents aside for a moment and consider your own life. God knows everything you do, everything you say, everything you think, everything you are getting ready to say. For years, when I heard that, it was scary to me. Now it is very comforting to me. He knows it all. There is no point in trying to fool Him or kid Him, nor will there ever be a moment where God says, "Well, let me tell you something, Tom — you were My guy until then. I didn't know that about you when I picked you, but now that I know it, you're out." He knows it all. He is all-powerful.
God Either Caused or Allowed This
There are three points you must take from this. Number one: God either caused or allowed this. This is a constant refrain at East Valley Bible Church. At one of the funerals this week, one of the men officiating said this: "God did not cause this, and He couldn't stop it." If that is true, then He is not God. God either caused this or allowed this. You don't have to apologize for Him. God can handle that.
Isn't that what He says in the Old Testament? When people are trying to figure out where God is and what He is doing, doesn't God say, "Who caused the blind? Who made the deaf? Who made the dumb? I did. I can handle it." When they look back at the death inflicted on the Egyptians, God says, "Who killed these people? I did. I can handle this. I am God." I, Tom, may not understand why He allowed this — or even more mind-boggling to me, that He would cause it — but I know He did. If He didn't cause this or didn't allow it, then He isn't God.
The Eternal Destination of Those Who Died
Here is a very important question that must be answered: what was the eternal destination of those who were killed in these attacks? I received three different cartoons or drawings this week, and I want to share them with you, because we know that in those attacks there were three groups of people who perished. There were the hijackers and those on the airplanes. There were those in the buildings. And there were those on the ground who tried to rescue them. Where are they now — the ones who died?
The first cartoon shows the hijackers standing before Satan, who says, "You've reached your final destination." The second shows firefighters and a policeman — it reads "NY Fire Department" — and one is on his walkie-talkie saying, "We've reached the top," with the implication being the pearly gates and their arrival in heaven. The third was drawn by a twelve-year-old girl. It shows the New York City skyline, the Twin Towers on fire, people perishing in the flames, and Jesus receiving them.
I selected those three because I think they capture a dominant thought in our culture, and it goes like this: on September 11th, nineteen hijackers went to hell and six thousand three hundred went to heaven. And understand that in the hijackers' own culture, the belief is the reverse — that nineteen hijackers went to heaven and six thousand three hundred went to hell. I don't care what anybody thinks. What is the truth? This is the dominant thought, and the media loves it. In fact, if you even raise another possibility, you are suddenly a jerk, you are insensitive. So we need to be alert, and we need to understand that we must speak in love — but let's tell the truth.
The Condition of Every Person Before God
Here is the truth: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." What is the condition of those men and women and children — those hijackers, those building occupants — before God? In Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3, God looks at mankind and evaluates every person, whether a pagan, a Greek philosopher, or a Jew. God looks at every person who has ever lived or ever will live, looks at us in our natural condition, and here is what He says: "There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside and become useless. There is none who does good, not even one." All have sinned. Every person has sinned.
Kennedy's Vision and Its Limits
At the end of Kevin Costner's account of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an audio recording of President John F. Kennedy was played. I had been gathering material for this series, and though I didn't know exactly where it would fit, it works well here. This is what President Kennedy said:
> *What do we seek? I'm talking about genuine peace, the kind that makes life on earth worth living. Not peace in our time, but peace in all time. Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by man. For in the final analysis, our most basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet.*
He was speaking about world peace. I want to draw out three quick thoughts from that quote. First: "our problems are man-made." That is true. Second: "therefore they can be solved by man." That is false. Third: "our most basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet." We do all inhabit this small planet, but that is not what really links us together.
What Actually Links Us Together
What links us together is sin. I have heard the President, the cabinet, and a great many others say, "We will get every evildoer." We understand what is being said, and I am not trying to nitpick, nor in any way to diminish what has happened. All I am saying is that we need to make sure we understand our situation clearly. We are all sinners.
I am not justifying the hijackings — you know that. I am saying you need to understand where you stand. Paul writes that the wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and what that sin earns us is death.
There are many people who say, "Here's the deal, God — just give me what I deserve. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I didn't know anybody, I started this business from nothing, and look what I've done. Give me what I've earned." But when we give someone what they have earned, we give them a wage. The wage for sin is death — not only physical death, but eternal separation from God. The free gift of God, by contrast, is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
Heroes and Saints
This brings us back to the central question: what about those who perished? Let's be clear about something. There were genuinely heroic actions. The men on that plane in Pennsylvania were heroes. The firefighters were heroes. I have heard interviews with survivors coming out of the buildings saying they had no idea what was going to happen — but those firefighters knew. They know how a building behaves under that kind of heat. They know they cannot withstand it. Those men were heroes.
But here is what I need you to understand: it is not heroes who go to heaven. It is saints. Eighty countries were represented among the dead — this was not only Americans. So where are they now?
Jesus said, *"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."* Peter declares in Acts 4:12, *"There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."* Paul writes to Timothy, *"There is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom."*
Here is the simple truth: if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then hell is your destination. No matter how good you believe yourself to be, no matter how heroic your final moments were, that does not change the debt your sin has created before God — a debt you cannot possibly repay. Heaven is not your future simply because you hold a U.S. passport, or because you performed a heroic deed.
What It Means to Know Christ
Do you know Christ? Knowing Christ means acknowledging that you are a sinner, separated from God by your sin, accepting Christ and Christ alone for your salvation, and having your life transformed by that. We have seen people turning away at the doors this morning, and the room is full now. God appears to be doing something significant in the midst of all of this. The question before each person here is not about nationality or courage — it is about whether you know Him.
Things Will Never Be the Same
"Things will never be the same." That statement has been made repeatedly over the past twelve days, and it carries real sorrow and nostalgia. But consider this: if we could reverse two weeks and go back to the way things were, I heard many of you complaining about how things were. People weren't serious. People didn't understand who God is. We had walked away. So apparently, things weren't all that good to begin with. If things are never going to be the same, that may well be a good thing.
Before we begin evaluating others, we need to start by looking at and evaluating ourselves. I have heard many people at East Valley Bible Church over the past week saying they see things very differently now. Things that once seemed important no longer do. They have a clearer view. One comment I have heard on several occasions particularly strikes me: "I didn't realize how far I had drifted away from the things that were really important." This is a tremendous time to reevaluate, retool, and recommit.
If you are a Christian, there is — and no pun intended — a target-rich environment out there, because people are genuinely wondering and genuinely looking. Everyone is trying to make sense of this. And instinctively, where do they turn?
A Moment to See Clearly
Things are never going to be the same. It is such a magnificent time for those of us in the body of Christ to live the truth. There is no reason to be afraid. The worst they can do is kill you, and then you go to heaven.
What you need to be is sensitive to those around you, and understand that they are needy. I talked to a lot of people who were here last week, and they said, "I don't normally come to church, but I felt so helpless and so hopeless and so needy." I had the privilege of pointing out to them that they were just as helpless the week before this, and they will be just as helpless next week.
All God did the other day was lift the veil just a little bit and let us peek under and see how horrific sin is, and how puny and pathetic we are when it comes to trying to please a holy God on our own. Those images are ingrained in my brain. I will never be able to look at a tower and not see a plane. If you are downtown and you see a plane in the skyline, your mind just does strange things, because that was horrific.
That gives you just a glimpse of your sin before a holy God. It ought to bring new meaning and depth to us as we worship Him and praise Him and live a life that is pleasing to Him.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for these truths. We pray that we did not just experience a life-changing event that will last a month, but that it will truly change our life and our perspective. God, I pray for those that are here today that are followers of Your Son, Jesus, that they would first and foremost examine their own life and then be ready and prepared to live that life in front of a skeptical, doubting world.
God, we pray for those that are here that do not know the way of salvation, that even to this very moment would say, "No, I'll go in on my own, thanks." God, break their heart and bring them to a point of repentance. God, I understand how volatile and emotional things are.
Father, if I have said anything inappropriate this morning, or insensitive or offensive, I ask You to somehow make that right. But if it was the truth or the gospel that offends, Father, so be it. We love You, we care for You. God, now transform our life — our family, our neighborhood, our world. We pray that to You in Jesus' name, amen.