ANGELFIRE 
8-13-02
 
It appears that more of our nation's airlines keep going broke in spite of the billions in federal aid given to them right after 9/11. Since we have the largest aviation industry on earth, it tends to reflect the state of U.S. prosperity. Today (Tues) president Bush meets down in Waco with 240 advisors from all sectors of the economy to get some control over our volatile stock market, which has performed like an air show lately. Critics say it's only Republican advisors or just contributors. Well I pray for him instead. He may be on vacation down there at Crawford, but the load's still heavy on the man. We'd all like to see that surplus in our nation's budget again, though 9/11 may have ended that possibility permanently. I looked at the globe beside my bed last night and noticed that Jerusalem and Waco are at the same earth latitude, 31 degrees north. Since my eye is usually on the former, I wondered about some link. Remember in the fifties when that 38th parallel in Korea was much in the news. It divided Communist from the free part of that land. Yesterday some female expert on military affairs was asked by a TV reporter to "look into your crystal ball and tell us" such and such. My first thought: "Lady, he's calling you a witch." But she took it with good nature, so I thought of also looking at the tea leaves, or the lucky stars, or into one's horoscope, or Nostradamus. Then I resolved that instead of a crystal ball I'd just keep looking in the Bible. 
As talk increases about a attack on Iraq, I'm reminded that "Chaldea" is the O.T. name of that country, which later included the wicked city of Babylon, heart of an empire. In ancient history it's known as Sumer, between the Tigrus and Euphrates rivers where the city of Er then existed. (Bagdad, of "Arabian Nights" fame, is there even yet) Er was where Abram(meaning "father") and Sarai lived until GOD called them away. First Abram's brother and son, Haran and Lot, migrated with their father Terah up the river. Haran died so they named the new site for him. Then Terah died and Abram left with his wife and servants for the Promised Land. There he gained the fuller name of Abraham (meaning "father of many nations") after going down to Egypt and returning. Sarai also became Sarah and she gained an hand-maid in Egypt, Hagar. The subsequent rivalry between those women and their sons, Isaac and Ishmael, has grown into global division by now. Isaac is ancestor to western civilization (Jews and Christians) and Ishmael to eastern (Islamic). The Bible's our book in the west and the Muslims read the Koran. So the situation in Muslim Iraq goes even more to a Biblical root of history than Jerusalem's turmoil, as I'm seeing it. And Iraq is Middle East the same as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Israel/Palestine. Watch for a <b>whack on Sadaam in Iraq that will fly through the flack for a sudden attack</b>. Israel will be our example, as seen in '67 when her Arab neighbors were building up for a war, she launched a pre-emptory strike and thus gained the victory in just six days. All of Palestine was made Israel's by defeating the Syria-Lebanon-Jordan-Egypt alliance; territory which the Palestinians still claim as. But by war it was gained for Israel, and is their territory even yet. <p>
My day starts with a look in the Book, and it opened a morning or so back to Daniel 11. That chapter tells of the cruel king who will rule as a false Messiah. It's where Christians are first warned in Scripture about the Antichrist. We usually think of a person, but could it be a machine? Or a monetary unit, such as euro or dollar? We know that Christ Jesus is the king of heaven, but money still rules this world. Yet all of it combined can't buy a place in the Kingdom. Jesus did that for us with His own blood. So let's pray for our president, supposedly on vacation. I hope they open that meeting at Waco with prayer. After all, it's at the Southern Baptist's Baylor University. 
Shalom/Salaam
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