ANGELFIRE 9-01-09 This is being written Tues. evening, so is not expected to be in either the Democrat or Gazette. But online readers are enough in number to motivate my writing this message. One of the comparisons I'm seeing each day as I watch the global weather report is between meterology and cosmology. The first pertains to weather in the atmosphere here on Earth while the latter is about this entire material Universe. Seeing the huge cyclones on our own planet is so much like the circular and spiral galaxies in deep outer space. Even the nebula that form into stars and galaxies seem to compare with the clouds we see just in the air. Since symmetry is a theme of plasma cosmology, it surely appears to me between the local weather and vastness of creation. Just as birds live in our air, so stars are born and die in the galaxies of the whole Milky Way and those myriads beyond it. Isn't this a gift of the Creator to His conscious creatures? Sort of like the parables Jesus used to teach us heavenly things. Now, I'm thinking about our Discovery Shuttle that finally took seven astronauts up to the International Space Station. It had been delayed so many times that it seemed Endeavor's story back in July all over again. But I just read how another female has joined the prmanent crew up there and how some of the others are working with her right now in setting up a conveyor system for moving the big load of supplies they brought. I take it the main body of ISS is in place now and these are finishing touches on it all. Endeavor brought home some of the stuff they had replaced with new items and this crew will do the same when finished. Yet it seems to be getting little coverage. We are seeing just too many other things in the news down here on Earth. Also, I fear there's going to be efforts in Congress to curtail expenditures on outer space with so much red ink being predicted in our Federal budgets ahead. The mission to Mars is likely to be lacking in bold appeal, especially if all that's planned for going back to the Moon in preparation for the first step going to it, gets cancelled. IYA2009 is getting the world more aware of the Universe, but the cost of starting to explore it, wow! ANGELFIRE is glad for our faith that looks to a second and final visit to us from the Creator of all we can behold in the night sky. Yet I reflect and ponder the place of other worlds that might be out there beyond our scruteny, with conscious beings like ourselves. HIS Almighty agape love surely includes them along with the humanity to which we Earthlings belong. That adds yet more glory to the parousia. So COME LORD JESUS. SoLong/Shalom, JosephA@webtv.net
ANGELFIRE 9-04-09 We see this morning that the huge fire in CA down around LA is now considered the work of an arsonist. That's a word ANGELFIRE sees to describe Satan. He so envies the "Creator of heaven and earth" that he'd rather destroy every part that he can't own. So setting fires secretly is the manner employed. No wonder that his name means "adversary." And his other one, devil, is for "accuser." Clearly, he never accepts any blame about the ruin resulting through his treachery, but lays it onto others with lies, lies and more lies. Even fire gets a bum deal from Satan, so that it's illegal to build one almost every place vacationers can go. In primitive thought there were just four basics of the Universe: earth, air, FIRE and water. Now because of arsonists, we tend to see that third basic as an enemy rather the fundamental stuff. I can remember when so many homes had a fireplace, such as my aunt and uncle at Ft.Arbuckle, Kat and Dick Grant. On visits to their Big House on the old fort site, I'd sit and look into the burning embers of their huge fireplace. It cast some sort of childhood spell over me as the warmth felt good and the glow so pleasant to see. There were fire tongs at hand to poke the logs as Uncle Dick kept everything under control. Then, in later years almost every fine home had it's own fireplace. But even that's been longsince by now. I guess that was an age of "angelfire," but now it's lost any heavenly aurora. Yet here in IYA2009 I'm thinking of cosmology, which has become so scientifically secular that it has helped Satan trick the world with that expression "Big Bang." Of course scientists know is as The Standard Model or TSM instead, and don't necessarily consider it a fiery explosion (like the BB implies). Our Scriptures speak of the Creator "spreading out the stars" instead. It says that a dozen times so that the gently making of a bed or draping of curtains is implied, not the brutal outburst of force in a cosmic blast hidden behind The Singularity. In fact no explosives existed until man created them in recent centuries. Even gunpowder, being of ancient Chinese origin, wasn't to make guns or bombs, but for making joyful fireworks to be sent up in the night sky. So it's a devil's trick to imply that the Father Almighty is some sort of an Original Arsonist. ANGELFIRE's perception is that His holy Light, which has been sought by monks in their monasteries for centuries, is GOD himself rather than some attribute of creation. The light He created in Gen.1 is of a lesser sort than the Divine Light which He actually is. Thus ANGELFIRE refers to the Original kind, which is creative rather than destructive. I'll say more later about how scientific cosmology shows the emergence of that "prince of darkness"/ chief arsonist at another time. Note that our modern cosmic view comports with "the principle of uncertainty" which was enunciated for physics in the first half of the 20th centurhy. It was discovered by Warner Heisenberg, Adolph Hitler's own choice to direct German atomic research. For proving the PoU he got a Nobel Peace Prize in 1932, (another of satan's devious tricks). SoLong for now, JosephA@webtv.net
ANGELFIRE 9-07-09 We saw no mention of WW's first game in the Friday report of Garvin county's season starts. But since we got such a beating by the Davis Wolves, maybe it was better being left out. Yet PV had a similar starter. In fact, it was only Elmore City that had a clear win. So spirits must be high over there for the Badgers, even if low for Savages nor Panthers. ANGELFIRE doesn't get to games much now, but was once played as a Panther way back when Ray Thompson was our coach. He died a long time ago but left a prominent name that was placed on the Thompson Field. Football's my favorite sport because I see the game as figurative for the Bible. Just as there are four quarters and a half time, the Bible divides into the same number of five parts: (1) books of Law (2)...of History (3)...of Poetry and beautiful ceremony when queens are crowned (4)...of Prophecy and (5)books of The New Testament. Just as those last 27 hold the winning chapters of Scripture which record the battles between Godly and godless ones, so the last quarter of a football game is most crucial. If Christ is our heavenly coach, then Satan must back the opposing team. Preachers can be referees on this field of earth, but God looks on from above as the Chief Umpire most high. There was a legendary statement long used for team sports that I can still recall: "When the great Score Keeper comes, to mark beside your name; He writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the game." Christians must take their inspiration from Coach Jesus, who enables to us to play it right, whatever. Thus each can win regardless of the whole team's score showing on the scoreboard. So we each have a private and personal relationship with Him as well as what others can see and know about us. In fact I first learned it "when the great S.K. comes to mark AGAINST your name" but ANGELFIRE changed that to "beside your name." As He returns in glory and majesty, there will be rewards for some but the greatest reward of all for every believer is being with Him everafter. And isn't it significant that the game never has any "trigger," a word being heard now, which sounds like guns and carnal warfare. Instead football's played with our disarmed bodies and total wills combined into a team. No guns on the gridiron, Hallelujah! SoLong/Shalom, JosephA
ANGELFIRE 9-11-09 What a date on which to write! It was eight years ago that NYC saw it's Twin Towers disappear in that day of disaster that totalled over 3000 lives being lost. Yet now face financial disaster keeps looming ahead as we try to cope with the rising cost of health care. As ANGELFIRE recalls, it was Ronald Reagan who first used the Trillion dollar figure in our national budget; it staggered us to try thinking that big, but we've now become accustomed to it from both political parties. Whereas GW's bailout fund just over a year ago was that big, now the anticipated debt looms many times larger for our grandchildren. So president Obama spoke Wed. about his plan, but was heckled by a Republican S.C. congressman named Joe Wilson who shouted "You lie." What a jolt that was amid all the tension Obama faced. Now Wilson has become nationally infamous (or known), though he did apologize. Still, he's put himself on the map and that seems to be all political figures seek any more. He did it on the very day of "nines" that superstitious folk were noting. Somehow that compares to me with the Mexican who staged a terrorist attack aboard that airline which flew into Mexico City. He's being called a religious fanatic because he did it on the date he claimed to be 666, "only upside down." If you know the book of Revelation, you'll recognize a designation for the Antichrist. The guy must have linked his threat to blow up that plane with Obama's speech the evening before to all of America. Was he utterly crazy as the media depicts, or was he an extreme Evangelical as others maintain. The latter view sees endtime prophecy unfolding in all these events. ANGELFIRE anticipates the return of our Lord Jesus Christ as quite imminent, and gladly says C.L.J. So long for now, JA
ANGELFIRE 9-17-09 When I read that letter to the editor last week by Larry Sorrow from out in New Mexico, his report brought back some recollections. It was about several high school students who had climbed PV's Historic Tower back in 1958. Since the H.T. has been a theme in my ANGELFIRE column for some years now, I do remember the publicity it gained that year nearly half the tower's lifetime ago. I was a pastor in Muskogee and it was in the state news there in N.E. Okla. Folks who knew that I was from PV were curious about a town where such dangerous behavior was allowed. Not knowing any of the participants, I just had no explanation to offer except "kids will be kids." So now after all these years we've read the story first hand. Thanks Larry. I had the appeal of youth to me of them wanting to conquer a challenge they saw. Seems to me now in this International Year of Astronomy that it was even then being designated as a pointer toward humanitie's ultimate challenge. IYA2009 has for it's slogan this year "The Universe, Yours to Explore." Our PV tower was built even before statehood in 1903, when the Wright brothers began aviation with their first flight at Kitty Hawk. Before the end of that century, such had become the travel industry that provided us global community. Now our human questions reach far beyond this planet, to the boundary of existence. So IYA2009 has astronomers who are all linked by travel and information technology united in searching the reaches of outer space and sharing what they've found. Though I'm certain that only few feel this way, ANGELFIRE believes the Maker of it all is about to be discovered as Father Almighty. Our own NASA is cooperating with like agencies of other nations and planetariums are being joined with orbiting space based telescopes in this colossal venture. Soon a Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) will be launched into orbit with the means for detecting or "seeing" light (radiation) form regions twice as away as our famous Hubble Space Telescope with it's GSC (giant sky camera). JDEM will peer right up next to the singluarity or BEGINNING, which ANGELFIRE sees as first words of our Holy Bible, "In the beginning God created..." And PV's historic tower is shouting "right on" by still being there in it's place till the Lord Jesus returns. Hallelujah! JosephA@webtv.net
LORD's DAY 9-19-09 I'm writing on the Sabbath rather than Lord's Day, but just to gett back on three nines. It was ignored a week ago Wednesday by most educated people, but still got publicity because of that Bolivian who hijacked a passenger plane carrying 104 people. Though he claimed it was a bomb, the thing he carried was made of tin cans with a cover that fooled the pilot into compliance. In fact, the Bolivian didn't even have a real gun. Thus, the whole affair was a super hoax so that he could get attention to claim the date 9-9-9 was an upside down version of 666. That brought back memories of all the scare on the last night of 1999, which had the same numeral configuration. It was the Antichrist being anticipated back then as a new century/millenium was ushered in. News about the hijacker has dropped away, but he surely will do plenty of time in jail if not worse. We all feel more scientific than to let numbers carry creepy meanings don't we. Yet when the Bible used that one in a particular way, we'd be spiritually wiser yet to give consideration of it's being a sign. After nine years since that flurry of threat, we've now gotten it twice in over a week's time. So what about that evil one who is to preceed the Lord's glorious return. He must be already on the agenda in current affairs and we need discernment to tell who. Tribualation time too! Yet our eyes are on Jesus coming again!! SoLong/Shalom, JosephA@webtv.net
ANGELFIRE 9-22-09 I've just noticed that the date on which this is being written coincides with the Scripture ANGELFIRE was given to read earlier this morning, 2 Thess. 2. Now that is a chapter of warning about the man of sin who appears before Christ's return. The apostle Paul is warning that large Greek church of evils it will have to face in the days ahead. Scholars tell us that 1st & 2nd Thessalonians are the earliest writings of Paul. He was preparing them for coping with an Antichrist that would rule this world with and iron hand. It certainly wasn't the lovely, lovely gentleness so often associated with Gospel truth. They would face persecution and suffering before the final glorious appearing of their Lord Jesus in His final glory. Some have called it the "rapture" but that word is not Scriptural. So ANGELFIRE prefers "parousia," another word of Greek origin that was used about kings in the empire of Alexander the Great. They would make surprise appearances at cities under their rule. It was unannounced to prevent fake behavior. Such would be a glad day for the law abiding citizens, but destruction for rebels who defied his authority with secret misconduct. Thus the final coming of the King of all history is expressed as a "glorious appearing" or parousia. With our global community, we are poised for just such a grand finale. To be ready let's begin each day with prayer and Bible reading. When we ask Him, the Lord will show us a portion of Scripture for the day. And sometimes a song too, such as this one: "Oh I know the Lord, I know the Lord, I know the Lord has laid His hand on me (repeat). Wasn't that a happy day, I know the Lord has laid His hand on me. When Jesus washed my sins away. I know the Lord has laid His hands on me. (refrain) O I know the Lord has laid His hand on me. Some seek the Lord but they don't seek Him right, they fool all day and play at night (refrain). My Lord's done just what He said: He's healed the sick and raised the dead (refrain)." Hallelujah!! So long for now, JosephA@webtv.net
ANGELFIRE 9-25-09 Watching the United Nations meeting in NYC is certainly a civic opportunity. It is special for the US since our first black president delivered the greeting and is also chair of the Security Council, another presidential first. It's truly a time that Africans have been waiting to behold. But that dictator from Libya, Quadafee, who mouthed off for an hour and a half, was an opening test of patience. And the speech from Iran's president Abnedinejab caused half the audience to walk out. Hopefully good sense will start to prevail now. ANGELFIRE doesn't pray for the UN, as I did years ago. I pray for Israel instead. The future of history according to the Bible is not in the hands of man, but is hidden in the mystery of Christ crucified, risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of GOD. Satan isn't mentioned in Scripture for a third of the way into the Book. But 1 Chron. 21 names him as the "adversary" become personified. And in subsequent books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther etc. Satan has become the devil's name. We studied Ezra last Sunday night at LARC. Glen Simonsen brought an excellent lesson on how he turned the tribes in their Babylonian captivity back to the Law of Moses. And he may have been the author of 1 & 2 Chronicles, which were a rewrite of the earlier two books of Samuel. He reinterprets an account from 2 Samuel 24:1-9 in 1 Chronicles 21 of how the LORD stood up against Israel to say instead "And Satan stood up..." So thereafter the Jewish faith became a little like the Persian's two gods (Mazda & Ahrmand), one of light and the other darkness. It was Cyrus of Persia who released the Israelite captives so they could return to Jerusalem; thus they were willing to borrow from the Persian faith. Now the UN is facing Iran (or Persia) in the effort of controling nukes. So Israel is our best allie against that rogue nation. And Russia should side with the UN and US to prohibit any Persian nukes from being built. It would bring on Armageddon if they get one and attack Israel, and that's why our prayers should be focused on the Middle East. Satan will appear as the Antichrist to offer a fake kind of peace (instead of true shalom). But let's not be taken in. Our US motto is still "In God We Trust." So we look for the Son's return to to Earth's Jerusalem as King of kings!
LORD's DAY 9-27-09 I drove past PV's opening day crowd at the renewed police station location yesterday. It was full of cars and people, but especially the ancient autos also on display. Since I had to get on to my paper route, I couldn't park nor go inside, but did feel good about the big turnout. So much of our town has undergone remodeling of late. I guess the H.T.(historic tower) is about the only thing yet untouched, and ANGELFIRE prefers it thus. Yet a second big downtown fire has taken the hotel I've known for a lifetime at the East end of downtown. That Alvis hotel has always been there, but the ruins from it's Thursday fire were still smoking as I looked inside Sat. morning. A young employee of Yeatts next door was convinced that some transient had built himself a fire to keep warm after squeezing inside. Then it got out of control and destroyed our last most histoic spot in PV. I'd already heard suspcions expressed about some elderly guy hanging around as the fire was being fought. Being a second big fire in downtown PV this same year caused me to wonder if they're signs or porents. ANGELFIRE already feels our town has special significance in this IYA2009, and is trying to figure what slant to take on fires in the oldest part of PV. Is it to make way for a new Day? Come Lord Jesus!!
ANGELFIRE 10-02-09 From now until until year 2010 begins, the implicit theme of things is going to be Divine Incarnation, which means Christmas. You say that Halloween comes first and then the sacred climax of each year. ANGELFIRE has to admit that Halloween has now become a larger celebration than even the birth of Christ, and will create plenty of business in October. Halloween's strangeness is a prelude to The Great Event that has gotten rid of so much chaos in this world's affairs. Though Halloween celebrates the bizarre side of life, that serves to highlight the renewed focus we will get on orderly living later in December. Believers just have to stay on course and not be taken in by so much playlike insanity. Even our top notch scientists now realize there is a "principle of uncertainty" (or chaos) in physics that was proven by the famous German scientist named Heisenberg in 1927. He shook up the world with that discovery which has now shifted us from classical physics into quantum mechanics, a more accurate view of workings in the Universe. Even the famous Einstein found quantum ideas unacceptable at first, saying that God does not play dice with creation. Therefore, ANGELFIRE now accepts Columbus Day and even Halloween to serve as ice-breakers in our collective mind each year it's preparing us to apprehend again the Incarnation Event. SoLong/Shalom, JosephA
ANGELFIRE 10-05-09 Earthquake in Indonesia, tsunami in Somalia, flooding in India, typhoon in Pacific, wild fire in California and now a possible hurricane from the Atlantic--- all on our global weather agenda. This seems to ANGELFIRE as an Earthly imitation of cosmic activity. The full story of how galaxies formed following that initial singlularity is full of weather; which we once thought to be unique on this, our own, planet. The original quarks and gluons surged out in an expansion that began nearly 14 billion years ago. They were the elementary particles that would first be joined to form fermions or leptons in becoming matter, while bosons were simultaneously formed from electromagnetic massless radiation. Thus bosons are energy particles (instead of matter). The Universe would thereafter be composed of matter and energy, which resulted in cosmic weather galore. That first radiation was electromagnetic, which puts electricity and lightning at the start. It's one of the four interactions within matter, seemingly the very first. That initial electro-magnetic radiation sent everything into an enormous expansion (not explosion), which has since increased up to very near the speed of light. A second basic force is gravity, which began drawing the particles together to form giant nebulas. They each in turn, began spiraling down into centers that became black holes all filled with dark matter. It was gravity which drew so much matter into the galactic center that not even light could escape it's hold. But in the spiral arms going down to each black hole, there were and are star formations happening. That also has been gravity at work, usually through star circles which continue dividing over and over into other stellar bodies. So the four particle forces (interactions between cosmic bodies of matter i.e. sub-atomic particles). Working from largest to smallest in the Universe are (1)electro-magnetism, (2)gravity, (3)the strong nuclear force and (4)the weak nuclear force. A Unified Field Theory so long being sought by astrophysicists could unite these four into one comprehensive force, GUT (general uniting theory). ANGELFIRE is aware that mathematics serves as the language used to probe what we've said above. Higher math is far too complex for the average person, of which I am one. But my electronic training in the navy back in WW ll did take us up through 3/d geometry, trigonometry and to preliminary calculus. So I've kept up with finding the 16 elementary particles and now that search for the seventeenth. It will complete The Standard Model (TSM). CERN over in Switzerland was all set to prove it a couple of years ago, but it's world's largest super-conducting particle accelerator malfunctioned, and the Higgs boson was never verified. It was being called "The God Particle" since it would confirm TSM as final reality. That Higgs boson was to add it's mass to not only the other 16, but the hundreds more of others formed by combinations of the basic 17. In this International Year of Astronomy ANGELFIRE proposes here a unifying vision: man once considered the Creator as a being like himself with two arms/hands, two legs/feet, and eyes/nose/mouth on a head as the Bible implies. But Greek philosophy led us to consider that a childish anthropomorphism. Yet it's there in the Scripture. So ANGELFIRE sees that the 4 forces could be two arms and two legs of the AlmightyGod and the unifying Force, his head and face. In fact our New Testament uses "Godhead" to speak of the Creator. Thus the eyes, nose, mouth and ears, which are also mentioned in Scripture, are included in that designation. And Christians have this text also: "The One who first commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus." 2 Cor.4:6 It was known in Bible times that no man could see the face of GOD and live. because of His holiness/power. But in Christ we are given grace so great as to overcome that fear and dread of beholding YAHWEH's face. In the prologue of John's gospel we read "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." So the Word was not only heard, but seen by mankind. Such is ANGELFIRE's theophany. SoLong/Shalom, Joseph@webtv.net (replies welcome)