September 11, 2001. The day was beautiful and sunny. People had returned from their late summer vacations and children started school. Nothing prepared us for what was to occur that day.

Normally, I take the 8:40 train, getting to my office, located adjacent to the World Trade Center, at about 9:20. However, my wife was due to report for jury duty that morning. As we helped our two children get ready for school, I agreed to drive her to the courthouse. I said, “No problem, I'll just take a later train.”

After dropping my wife off at 8:55, I turned on the radio. I could not believe what I was hearing. A plane had just crashed into one of the towers at the World Trade Center. Was it an accident? No one was sure. Then at 9:03, a second plane hit the second tower. It was now clear. The city was undergoing a terrorist attack.

As I boarded my train, large billows of smoke could be seen in the distance. Then, as the train approached Manhattan, I could see both towers very clearly. It was shocking, almost painful. Both towers had huge, gaping holes in their sides, with a tremendous amount of dark smoke pouring out of them. The sight was unbelievable. These towers had long been major fixtures of the New York skyline. To see them in this condition was incomprehensible. Yet there was a feeling that the emergency, though terrible, would somehow be dealt with.

As the train proceeded into Manhattan, it passed behind a building obstructing our view. At that moment, a fellow passenger entered the car, sobbing almost hysterically, and announced to us that one of the towers had just collapsed. We sat in stunned silence. The conductor attempted to calm the passenger, as the passenger tried to reach someone in the World Trade Center on his cell phone. The train moved beyond the obstruction, and there in the midst of a fresh cloud of light smoke stood only one of the towers. This sight became too much to bear. How could only one of the “Twin Towers” be standing? Passengers wept, shrieked or sat in shock. At about this time also were the reports on portable radios of an attack on the Pentagon. Another plane down in Pennsylvania. It seemed to be a full-scale attack.

About * hour later, the second tower collapsed before our eyes, again in a huge plume of white smoke. More tears and gasps of horror. The infernos in both towers were terrible enough, but a complete collapse was too much. By now, there would be no more trains entering Manhattan and we were turned around.

Everywhere radios blared the news. People cried or walked numbly on the street, others anxiously tried to keep up with developments. As people desperately tried to escape lower Manhattan, the entire city came to a standstill. I wondered about my coworkers and friends. Were they evacuated in time? I was able to reach my home in the early afternoon. My wife had been sent home from jury duty. We watched TV and began to receive phone calls from concerned friends. I called my boss and it appeared that everyone from my workplace was safe. When a dear Christian friend called from the Netherlands to see how we were, knowing that I worked under the Trade Center, the gravity of the event began to sink in. I began to weep and could not speak. If I had taken the earlier train, I might have been in the collapse. I was grateful to the Lord that I had been spared. Yet so many had surely been lost. I wondered about the hot dog vendor, the shoe repairman, the owners of the deli. This was the neighborhood where I spent nearly every Monday through Friday.

As I reflected on the events of that day and the developments following, I had a strong realization of the real battle in the universe, that between God and Satan. I thought of the first murder, as described in the story of Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, and realized how intensified Satan's work had become. But what struck me the most was that in the midst of this horrible event I sensed a call from the Lord, a call for me to 'rise up,' a sounding of the trumpet by the Lord, not only to me, but to all His people. As I watched the one tower stand in the midst of the smoke, there was a feeling within me that the Lord needs His sons to 'rise up.'

The attack of September 11 convinced me more than ever that there is a warfare in this universe between two kingdoms. 'Lord, Thy kingdom come.' Now is the acceptable time to serve Him.