On September 11, 2011, I preached the final message in a series that I called, “Excuses: Answering the Religious Skeptic.” When I originally began this series, I honestly didn’t plan to end the series on September 11, but providentially God had it all planned out. This was the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks upon our country which left 2,977 dead. According to Wikipedia 19 hijackers committed murder-suicide, and more than 6,000 others were injured. The immediate deaths included 26 on the four planes (including the terrorists), 2,606 in the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area, and 125 at the Pentagon. The attacks were the deadliest terrorist act in world history, and the most devastating foreign attack on United States soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. My Facebook memories this week, reminded me of several people who commented on what an excellent service we had on that day. I introduced our service that day with a video showing the events of 9/11. I then preached on the age-old question, “Why Would a Good God Allow Evil?” We learned about the problem of evil, the purpose of evil, and God’s providence over evil. Listen below.
Why Would a Good God Allow Evil?
At the end of the message, I shared an amazing video. September 10, 2001, First Officer Steve Scheibner packed his suitcase and waited for the phone call finalizing his assignment to fly American Airlines Flight 11, from Boston to Los Angeles. The call never came. In My Seat recounts the events leading up to Flight 11 and the subsequent death of Tom McGuinness in the seat that should have been filled by Steve Scheibner.
Steve is a member of Friendship Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC. This church supports a couple of EMU missionaries and is the ministry where our daughter’s husband Kris Wilder serves on the pastoral staff.
To hear the rest of Steve’s story read “In My Seat” the book.
What does it feel like to have someone die in your place, not once, but twice? First Officer Steve Scheibner lived out that reality on September 11, 2001. Originally scheduled to be the First Officer on AA Flight 11, this biographical book outlines Steve’s involvement and reaction to the terrorist hijacking of Flight 11. As well, this is the story of a man, prepared by God, to influence the world by his testimony of God’s substitutionary atonement as pictured by the death of First Officer Tom McGuinness, as he filled the seat that should have been Steve’s. Follow the mark of God’s fingerprints as he prepared Steve, from the time he was a young boy until the present time, to be a messenger of God’s gospel of salvation, through Jesus Christ. Readers will walk away from this book encouraged to live like a “Borrowed Time Believer,” rather than a “Someday Saint.”