Bible Question: "Why did God allow the terrorists to attack us? If God is so all-powerful, surely He could have stopped the attacks."

Bible Answer: Yes, God could have stopped the attacks, but for some reason we cannot fully understand and never know, He didn't. The larger question behind your question is "Why is there evil in the world? Why does God allow evil to exist, when He could destroy it?"

That's a question that better minds than mine cannot answer.

The good news is a day is coming when all evil will be vanquished once and for all, when the lamb will lay down with the lion, when the swords shall be beaten into plowshares, Isaiah 2:4 promises.

That day will be when Jesus comes back to take His rightful place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But until that day, if the lamb lies down with the lion, it better not sleep too soundly. And we had better keep our swords sharp and ready until that day, because we'd have a hard time defending ourselves from evil with plowshares.

Until Jesus comes, we are living in a world where evil is a fact, regardless of whether we understand its existence in God's plan. And evil is the only way to describe what happened to the helpless people in New York and Washington and on airliners who were killed on Sept. 11 in the name of Allah in a perversion of Islamic religion.

There is no justification for such murderous acts in any civilized society in the world, including in the Islamic scriptures, the Koran.

But as bad as the situation is, already we can see some good coming from it. Who would have thought Democrats and Republicans in our government could come together and point their swords outward instead of inward, as they have since Sept. 11?

Who would have expected a Republican President could ask a divided Congress for $20 billion and they would say, "No, take $40 billion," as just happened in the past few days? Only a crisis like this could motivate us to put aside our differences and work together, so in that sense, some good has already occurred from this evil.

God can take the worst of circumstances to bring about good, and that may well be His plan for suffering this evil to come on us.

The verse that has come to my mind repeatedly since the attacks is 2 Chronicles 7:14, which is God's words to Solomon when he dedicated the new temple just built in Jerusalem at the very height of Israel's kingdom and power, a moment that was never surpassed.

"If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

This was a promise for redemption from evil, but also a warning from God to Israel. If God's people turned away from Him, He warned He would send drought or locusts or pestilence on them to bring them back to Him, in 2 Chronicles 7:13, in order to entice them to "turn from their wicked ways."

In many ways, America has turned from God and pursued wicked ways. Our television shows and movies, our drug culture and many other societal ills are unmistakable signs of a people far from God.

We have even banned the 10 Commandments from our schools, and then wonder why our kids don't know "You shall not steal."

Perhaps allowing these attacks is God's way of turning us back to Him. Certainly our churches and places of worship have been full in recent days with people praying for our nation as never before, or at least not as seen in a long time. Perhaps these attacks will lead to a long overdue revival of God's people and many turning to Christ.

After King Solomon, the kings and people of Israel turned away from God, and read their story in the Old Testament and you will find a tale of woe and sorrow as they were defeated and led off into slavery by one enemy after another. But when they turned back to God, He always heard their cries from captivity and set them free.

I pray that in these difficult times, people will turn to Christ, for He truly is the only answer, the only way we can triumph over evil.

Submit Bible questions by email to writeme@johnwmyers.com

(John Myers has been a Christian lay speaker, Sunday School adult teacher and newspaper Bible study columnist for more than 20 years.)