At last it was here—the call to formal ministry for which I had waited so long.
After eighteen years, a Master’s degree, and a seemingly endless sojourn in a professional no-man’s-land, I was finally working full-time for the denomination. The Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists had called me to serve as a Bible instructor/evangelist, with a special focus on the unreached peoples of New York City. Now I was living in a small one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, getting ready for my first-ever public evangelistic campaign.
Little did I know my ministry was soon to be placed in the vortex of the new decade’s watershed event.
September 11, 2001
I had lived nearly three months in the heart of America’s biggest city, savoring both the joy of full-time service in the Lord’s work and the security of a full-time pastoral salary. The new company of believers to which I had been assigned in Lower Manhattan looked forward eagerly to the outreach we were planning for the community and beyond.
One week earlier, a close friend had invited me to dinner at Windows on the World, a restaurant located on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The evening was picture-perfect, with visibility extending beyond Brooklyn and Queens to the Long Island suburbs, beyond Manhattan into the Bronx, and across the Hudson into New Jersey. The sight offered a breathtaking, daunting view of my new field of labor. Little did I know that in less than a week, the spot where my friend and I had enjoyed our pleasant meal would be empty space.
Then the fateful morning dawned.
An Indian summer morning, not a cloud in the sky, tranquil, and temperate. It was Tuesday, and all Conference workers were expected to be upstate at Camp Berkshire, the Conference youth camp, to prepare for the annual united camp meeting. Leaving my Upper East Side apartment after 8 a.m, I took the cross-town 96th Street bus to catch the No. 3 subway train to Lower Manhattan, where I was to join a pastoral colleague and his family for the drive to the camp.
At approximately a quarter to nine, I exited the 12th Street subway station for the walk to the 11th Street Church, where my colleague was waiting. As I walked down Seventh Avenue, fingers pointed and voices shouted into cell phones. The North Tower of the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane. Black smoke poured into the sky.
I hurried to 11th Street, and as I met my colleague and his family getting ready to leave, I urged them to turn on the car radio. In the few minutes that followed, we were informed that the South Tower of the Trade Center had been struck by yet another plane.
Now we knew this couldn’t be an accident. America was under direct attack. And so very much would never be the same again.
Trapped in the City
Needless to say, my colleague and I had no chance of getting to Camp Berkshire that morning. Soon after the attack Manhattan was sealed off—bridges, tunnels, subway and commuter train tracks, were closed at once. No one could enter, no one could leave.
My colleague and I drove to the bank of the Hudson, and from there watched as the towers burned and finally disintegrated. Later we learned that an Adventist lady was working that morning on the 54th floor of the one of the towers, and along with her co-workers had been told by a supervisor to stay where she was, because “this building is perfectly safe.” (One thinks of a certain ship that was deemed “unsinkable.”) The Adventist lady chose to flee regardless, and for good reason. As soon as she was clear of the building, it collapsed. Though covered in dust, the woman was otherwise safe.
Later I heard in person the story of some who worked for the state of New York in one of the towers, who were told by a boss that they shouldn’t leave till they got word from Albany, New York’s state capital. One of the ladies responded with some choice expletives for Albany, and like the Adventist lady, got out of the building just as fast as she could. Very possibly, that woman is still alive today. The others are still waiting to hear from Albany.
New York has often been called “the city that never sleeps,” and whatever one may say of this trait, now it proved advantageous. At peak working hours, nearly fifty thousand persons occupied the numerous offices, hotels, restaurants, and other facilities within the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. But at the time the towers were attacked, most were still on their way to work. Had the towers been hit even a scant hour later—or worse still, two hours—the death toll might well have soared into the tens of thousands.
Cab meters were turned off; all rides were free that day. But as the subways and buses were all shut down, travel on Manhattan Island slowed to a crawl. I didn’t get back to my apartment till around noon, three hours after the towers were hit.
Telephone service in and out of the city was sporadic at best, as millions both in and out tried to reach their loved ones. It took hours for me to reach family and friends, many of whom were in California.
As soon as thoroughfares in and out of town were again operating, hundreds of thousands fled the city limits. By the evening of September 11, Manhattan had become a ghost town. An eerie darkness settled over offices and apartment buildings. Many feared the attackers would return to wreak more havoc and take more lives.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Late that afternoon I went for dinner to a local restaurant, and sat close to a group who were holding forth against the nation’s attackers with a constant stream of rage, suffused with profanity. When the one who was talking the most learned my occupation, he kept apologizing to me every time he used a curse word. I finally said, “Please understand; you don’t owe me an apology.”
Interest in God and spiritual things was powerfully awakened—for a time, that is. As people watched the destruction of the Twin Towers, many were heard crying to God for mercy. Some within my hearing made references to the last days and how scenes throughout the city reminded them of what was to come.
Preparation for my upcoming evangelistic series grew intense, even frantic. The attention of North American Adventism focused on New York City—Manhattan in particular—like a laser beam. Pastors and laity, especially the young, flocked to the city to help with outreach efforts. When the time came for my meetings to begin, I began to sense the wisdom of the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for.” Opening night found officials from the NAD and numerous other visitors, local and otherwise, in attendance. A sense of serious inadequacy began to come over me. Others, including the NAD vice-president for evangelism who was present with his wife, offered encouragement.
My opening message was about the issue of death and dying, as this subject dominated so many minds and media outlets just then. (Only a few days before, CNN’s “Larry King Live” had featured a group of clergy who were asked the whereabouts of the thousands who had just died.) Interest in spiritualism was aroused; one sign near Ground Zero even advertised opportunities to communicate with dead loved ones. One magazine in the city published a cover featuring the burning towers with angels flying upward from the windows.
It was definitely a time of heightened spiritual awareness, both good and bad.
Lessons
I firmly believe the weeks and months immediately following the September 11 attacks gave America and the world a brief foretaste of what will transpire during the world’s final crisis before Jesus returns. Following are some notable lessons which I find especially memorable as an up-close observer of the 9/11 events:
1. As Ellen White has written, “It is in a crisis that character is revealed” [1]. In most cases character is not developed in a crisis; it is exposed by it. Like those who rushed to Noah’s ark when the rain started and the Flood came, many who turned to the Lord in the wake of 9/11 did not experience a fundamental, positive turnaround in their spiritual journey.
Character development is not acquired in moments, not even moments of grave crisis. Success or failure in this task of eternal import will be revealed, not accomplished when the great issues and dilemmas of life call for a decision.
2. Material things can’t be trusted. Only those who actually traversed the office corridors and other establishments within the World Trade Center can appreciate just how splendid and enduring those structures appeared to be. But only a scant few moments were needed to reduce them to rubble. The stench of death lingered in the air for weeks, amid twisted metal and charred ruins. The leader of a music group from one of our colleges said it reminded her of what the whole world will be like during the millennium, following the second coming of Christ.
On one occasion our Conference president and I, following a lunch meeting with a group of pastors in Lower Manhattan, walked to the edge of Ground Zero, staring into the gaping hole where the Twin Towers had once stood. The president turned to me and observed just how futile it is to place our trust in material things. Few lessons derived from the September 11 tragedy were as painfully obvious.
3. Our anchor remains the “sure word of prophecy” (II Peter 1:19). It is difficult not to read the following Ellen White statement as a prediction of the events of 9/11. We can’t be certain of this, of course, but the vision here described has made more than a few ponder its meaning in the wake of the events of two decades ago. Written in the dawning years of the century just past, the modern prophet states:
On one occasion, when in New York City, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. These buildings were warranted to be fireproof, and they were erected to glorify their owners and builders. Higher and still higher these buildings rose, and in them the most costly material was used. Those to whom these buildings belonged were not asking themselves, “How can we best glorify God?” The Lord was not in their thoughts. . . .
As these lofty buildings went up, the owners rejoiced with ambitious pride that they had money to use in gratifying self and provoking the envy of their neighbors. Much of the money that they thus invested had been obtained through extortion, through grinding down the poor. They forgot that in heaven an account of every business transaction is kept; every unjust deal, every fraudulent act, is there recorded. The time is coming when in their fraud and insolence men will reach a point that the Lord will not permit them to pass, and they will learn that there is a limit to the forbearance of Jehovah.
The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at the lofty and supposedly fireproof buildings, and said, “They are perfectly safe.” But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines [2].
4. It won’t take long to bring the world together. Despite the polarization and controversy produced by the 2000 U.S. election cycle, despite the myriad disputes between so many of the world’s great powers, the aftermath of 9/11 saw nearly the entire world come together in united rage against the terrorists. The President of the United States would soon declare to one and all: “You’re either with us or against us” [3].
It will happen again. Only this time it won’t be terrorists who will be arrayed against the whole of humanity. It will be the people of God. The Bible speaks of how at the end of time, the spirits of devils will “go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Rev. 16:14). Ellen White speaks of how this unity will be brought about, of how “fearful sights of a supernatural character will soon be revealed in the heavens, in token of the power of miracle-working demons” [4], and how these demonstrations will bring the world into one mind of unified rebellion against the government of heaven and those who represent it.
5. “Now is the day of salvation” (II Cor. 6:2). It is when times appear good and the blessings of God seem more evident than usual, that we should immerse ourselves in the Sacred Word and seek the Lord for a new heart and a right spirit. Those whose lives were snuffed out that lovely September morning—including the head elder of one of our Manhattan churches, present for his first day at work on the 96th floor of one of the Twin Towers—knew not the time of their visitation. The decisive moments of our lives rarely announce themselves.
In the words of the ancient prophet: “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon Him while He is near” (Isa. 55:6). The apostle Paul said much the same thing in his second letter to the Corinthians: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Cor. 6:2).
As we remember the decisive moment of a generation, may we commit ourselves at long last, without guile or reservation, to the task of preparing to meet our God (Amos 4:12). Many more decisive moments are coming; natural and human disasters will grow more and more frequent and ruinous. The footsteps of our coming King will be more and more audible. In the words of the apostle Peter:
Wherefore, brethren, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless (II Peter 3:14).
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 412.
2. ----Testimonies, vol. 9, pp. 12-13.
3. “You’re either with us or against us,” CNN, November 6, 2001 https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/
4. White, The Great Controversy, p. 624.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan