The Word says the Sycamore tree had been cut down. The biblical sycamore doesn't grow in New York City, however, on 9/11 a particular incident happened. A steel beam from the north tower was hurled from the sky and struck down a nearby object and it was a tree. The tree was a western version of the sycamore tree. The people called it the tree of ground zero. The sycamore had been cut down, but we will replace it with cedar the Word says in Isaiah. The biblical cedar refers to a pine tree, a strong evergreen tree. So, two years after 9/11, at the end of 2003, an object again is being lowered from the sky. And into the hole where the sycamore had been struck down was a cedar tree with a ceremony around it that was said, this is part of our hope.
When Solomon dedicated the temple in Jerusalem, he gathered the people and the leaders together, and he said when we win or when we depart from You, oh Lord, and then we come and we repent and we cry out and we turn back to You, hear from heaven, hear our cry for forgiveness and when you hear us, forgive. And when we go out against our enemy and we pray to You, then hear from heaven and maintain our cause because we have no strength against our enemies without Almighty God. They understood. Does this nation understand?
Back to Solomon; it was a special day and they were going to dedicate the temple. The temple represented the very essence of Israel. It was His presence that defined them. And there is a principle that when judgment comes, it will come to the ground where the nation has been dedicated to God just as judgment ultimately came to the temple.
America was born not on the fourth of July - that was when it became independent. When it became fully constituted as a nation, it was April 30, 1789. That was the day we had a government, a senate, a house of representatives, a president and when he was inaugurated, there was a call to dedicate America, a call to prayer and the words went out no nation can expect the favor of God if it turns away from God's ways. So they gathered the leaders to a little church ready to dedicate America to God. That was America's consecration ground. The capital, then, was not in Washington DC, it was in New York City. The little chapel, St. Paul's, is standing today. That chapel is at the corner of ground zero. America was dedicated to God at the corner of ground zero. When judgment comes, it touches the place where the nation has been dedicated and where it made its covenant.
But there is more. We all know that the seal of America is the eagle. And the eagle holds arrows in one hand and an olive branch in another. And it has a shield in front of it. It is the symbol of this nation's power, might and protection. Do you know where the original one is kept? It is not in the White House, it is not at the Pentagon, it is in that little chapel at the corner of ground zero. Also on the wall is a plaque that is Washington's prayer when he said, "Lord, God, keep this nation under your perfect protection." All around ground zero, every building was in some way shattered or affected. Most of the buildings had to be taken down, destroyed, brought to the ground, except for one. There was a small chapel where America had been dedicated to God, that God kept. It is called the miracle of 9/11.
When Solomon dedicated the temple and he prayed, we see it in 1 Chronicles 7:14 where it says, "If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, if they will seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
Interestingly, both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina took place in the Hebrew month of Elul, the time of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur. That month has just shifted. Could we be in that period of time, that period of grace, where God is watching over this nation, yearning for this nation, wanting to bring revival to this nation, but He is waiting to hear the cry of the people crying out in repentance for our haughtiness for turning from Him? For thinking we are so brilliant and so smart that we have all the answers and can do it our way? And we have turned from Him. We are in a period of grace. It has been five years since 9/11. That grace will not last forever.
The question: "Can we really rise to the demands of our powerful times?" the author wrote in the book that I quoted to you from. Will we, as a ministry, allow the necessary changes to take place in us, within our ministry, and within the body of Christ, to keep us relevant and in step with the times God has chosen for us? Thirty-nine years, soon to be forty years, of ministry and there has not been a waning. We have added our 165th nation just this last month. I think it was the nation of Morocco.
Last year, Asher Intrater from Jerusalem spoke to us, and he said every nation has two people groups, two groups of people: The general population, which is seen by God as rebellious to His authority, and the second group, the remnant, the group of the true followers of Jesus. The spiritual destiny of a nation is carried by the remnant of believers in that nation. You represent the true destiny of the nation of the United States of America. From God's perspective, He looks to the remnant. The same is true for the nation of Canada, the believers that God has raised up in that beautiful and mighty nation, the nation of Canada, the Aglow women, the ministry that God is raising up through the women in that nation, to intercede and cry out to God on behalf of the people and that nation. It is our hour, it is our time, it is our destiny.
We cannot understand God's purpose and destiny for a nation by the unbelievers. Even though the unbelievers represent the majority of the population, it is the believers who are the bearers of the national destiny and God has a spiritual purpose and a destiny for every single nation. It is the struggle between the positive divine destiny and the negative demonic destiny that constitutes the battle. The spiritual warfare, and this is the battle we find ourselves engaged in, but He has made us ready for the battle. He has prepared us, He has shaped us, He has formed us, He has taught us. Are we ready for the battle? Can we rise? Will we rise? Have we arisen? The answer is a resounding yes!