<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><img class="caption" src="images/stories/mikeevans.jpg" border="0" title="Dr. Michael Evans" align="left" />Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the most horrible day in America’s history. I have been here in New York City praying and getting ready for the gravest battle we have ever seen; in just 9 days the proclamation of Palestinian statehood will be voted on at the United Nations. <br /><br />The ideological, political, military, and strategic questions of why 9/11 happened have all been exhausted. The spiritual question has not been addressed. Without a doubt, God’s hand of protection was lifted from America on 9/11. Hundreds of glassy-eyed prophets of doom have come up with thousands of reasons why it happened. I’m not interested in joining that chorus. The key question, in my mind, is how we regain God’s protection over our beloved nation so that this never happens again. <br /><br />The story of the Angel of Death is best known from the days of Moses and Pharaoh. In preparation for the final plague, Moses was instructed to place the blood of the lamb on the doorposts so that the Angel of Death would pass over and not strike the house of Israel. <br /><br />During a dark hour in the life of King David, a famine and plague spread across the kingdom. David stood on Mount Moriah and saw the Angel of Death nearing Jerusalem. He experienced a theophany—a divine revelation—in which he was ordered to build an altar there. One of the original inhabitants of the city, Araunah the Jebusite, owned land on Moriah. This suggests that the city had expanded from the <em>Ophel</em> (a ridge of hills in Jerusalem) to the neighboring mountains. <br /><br />David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. He built an altar unto the Lord and offered a burnt offering and a peace offering. His obedience was a crowning moment in his career—the bringing together of God and His people. After David’s death, his son, Solomon, consecrated the House of the Lord on that very spot. The cloud of God’s divine presence, the Shekinah glory of the Lord, filled the Temple. <br /><br />Many years ago in Rome, Mother Teresa prayed with me for the children of Jerusalem. I said to her, “It must be difficult living in Calcutta, one of the poorest cities in the world, and with such terrible suffering.” She looked at me with sparkling eyes and said, “Where? Calcutta?” She said, “I don’t live there.” I was amazed when she said, “I live in the city of joy, but I’m going to the poorest country in the world tomorrow—America. It suffers from a poverty of spirit. Pray for me.” 
