That Red Sox victory last week in the World Series brought back the year 1918 when they last won. We as a nation should have followed their lead by winning instead of just calling t quits. I wasn't around that early but heard what a glorious year it had been all through my childhood. We celebrated THE day in that year again each Nov. 11th as a a last moment escape from the scourge of warfare, which had become so utterly terrible with the use of poison gas. Americans led by president Woodrow Wilson sought a beginning of "peace ever after" by getting both sides to sign an armistice, the Treaty of Versailles in France. The League of Nations was custodian of that dream. So it's expression became Armistice Day while we assumed it must have been signed at eleven o-clock, as an eleventh hour rescue. War itself was the common enemy of mankind. In IL I attended a one room country school where the teacher of all eight grades was Mr.Farlow. He'd fought in the World WAr and taught us the songs each morning before classes began. I still sing some of them to myself: "Over there, over there, send the word, send the word over there. That the yanks are coming, the yanks are coming, the drums rum tumming everywhere. So beware, say a prayer, send the word send the word over there. We'll be over, we're coming over and we won't come back til it's over over there" or "When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah! hurrah! We'll give him a mighty welcome then. hurrah! hurrah! The children and the boys will shout, the people here will all come out. And we"ll all be gay when Johnny comes marching home again" or "She's a grand old flag, and forever she'll wave. She's the emblem of the land I love, the home of the true and the brave. Every heart beats true at the red-white-and blue as we want her forever to wave. So if auld acquaintance should be forgot, keep your eye on the grand old flag" or "Keep the home fires burning while your hearts are yearning. Though the lads are far away, they dream of home. There's a silver lining through the dark clouds shining. So turn the black cloud inside out till the boys come home." Now we know that just an armistice wasn't good enough, so WW II could only end with unconditional surrender. And now we call it Veteran;s Day to include all our nation's wars and honor all branches of our military: Army, Navy, Marines, Cast Guard and Air Force. Most certainly it's a day to heed those patriotic signs seen in many yards that saying "pray for our troops." They are preserving our freedom that's been shown in the USA national election. And we must not seek an armistice with global terrorism as we await the second Advent of our Lord.Jesis the Christ. Hallelujah and Shalom INTERRUPTION OF SERVICE FOR SEVERAL WEEKS
ANGELFIRE 12-07-04
I saved "This Is the Real Thing" to read on this 63rd anniversary of that attack on Pearl Harbor. And I got quite emotional reading the story Jeff gave about the battleship "Oklahoma," especially from the memory of that seaman lst class of her as "old, but she ad a kind of dignity, with her broad beam and tripon masts. The home of a thousand sailors she had never fired a gun in anger, not even in WW I." It made me feel that our ship had sailed for peace and had then taken the main shock of the attack to be sunk in just eleven minutes. It seemed a sort of martyrdom to me, even though I was a sophomore in an Illinois high school instead of here at home. In fact I'd attended a Lincoln Grade school there in Mt.Vernon. So now I see that Pearl Harbor Day was what caused us to come back to Pauls Valley. My dad enlisted in the Sea Bees and mom wanted to be here where she grew up. So my older brother and younger sister and I finished high school in Pauls Valley. By that time our mother had been working in a CA shipyard where John and I had also been for a couple of summers. Then he went into naval officer training at Duke University on the east coast and I went to navy boot camp at San Diego on the west. Only little sister Jane will still here with grandmother Hightower. Dad was wounded out in the Pacific where the rest of his platoon all died from bombs a low flying Jap plane dropped. He was back at the Norman Naval hospital when the war ended. He had given up his business in Mt.Vernon, Hazlitt Heating Service, to enlist. And we were all totally involved until it was over. I recall that Sunday afternoon on Dec.7, 1941, when our family had gone riding out in the country. We had no radio in the car, but upon return we learned of the Japanese attack. I went to my room and looked at a map to find Japan. "Wow" I thought, "Why would such a tiny nation take us on? We"ll stomp them in a week or so." How wrong I was and what a change it made in out family and future. But now I want to be like "The Oklahoma," accept what happened, satanic as it was, and try to look forward to the Lord's return bringing that "love and laughter, with peace ever after" which we sang about during that terrible war, but never found "the real thing." It's only over when Jesus comes!
ANGELFIRE 12-10-04
What a relief to see gasoline at the pump for less instead of more. Just hope it continues, though I hear that our "weak dollar" is the cause. U.S.money used to be a standard for other nations, but now it helps us to sell more abroad when it declines. And we buy so much more than other nations do from us. "Sound as a dollar" is an obsolete expression isn't it. But gas in the tank is still our need. I've heard that China's auto explosion has helped raise to price since they are using as much as we do. Here in WW our Christmas decorations are nicer than ever. This year the sacred scenes come first, clear down from the giant scarecrow turned angel, there beside the police station. Then up at the east end the Airingtons have their fine yard display out once more. I saw Raymon and his wife Mary Louise getting it up just a while ago and told them it had been missed the past two years. And farther east the Senior Citizens have lighted emblems of the season. Of course there are many more beyond Kerr Blvd all around town. Drive down and take a look, especially at Alvera Lane over on the east side. "Happy Holidays" is being used as a more inclusive greeting. It includes Hannukah, New Years and Quanza, as well as Christmas. A report of "Chrismannuka" was on TV about Christians married to Jews celebrating together. Did you know that the books of Scripture called "Apocrapha" (dubious authorship) that Catholics still have in their Old Testament were dropped by Protestants because Jews had emitted the 14 from their canon at the Jewish council of Jamnia, way back in the New Testament era. So Jews have 39 where Catholics have an Old Testament of 43, or a Bible total of 80. We Protestants side with the Jews and then add the same 27 New Testament books as Catholics have. Our total is 66. Instead of a N.T. the Jews have The Tamud (teaching of great rabbis), which divides into the Mishna and the Gemarra. Of course Muslims have their Qua'ran (recitation) 114 chapters long, all divinely inspired (they believe). The angel Gabriel is supposed to have told each sura (chapter) at different times to Muhammad as he listened in a cave (outside Mecca or Medina, I forget which city). Their book names as prophets of Islam the first man, Adam. Then goes on to Abraham, Moses... and Jesus as number seven with Muhammad the eighth and final one (to speak for Allah /Arabic word for God). They worship on the sixth day when Adam was created, Juma, at the mosque, which means "place of prostration." The Muslim I know has gone back to Calcutta, his home city. But I hope that Abdul returns to WW. I've told him he might become an evangelical while still a Muslim. Just let Jesus save his soul. There's a "Jews for Jesus" so why not a "Muslims for Messiah?"
ANGELFIRE 12-14-04
Words of a little song of this season ask "What can I give Him, poor as I am? Were I a shepherd, I'd bring a lamb. Were I a wise man, I'd do my part. Yet what can I give Him? Give my heart." Of course it refers to the Babe in that manger of Bethelhem and it speaks to small children. Yet it is an evangelical answer for all mankind in making a first response to the supreme GIFT described by John 3:16. He is surely the reason for this season of giving. As she does each year, my wife Niece has been buying presents for children of prison inmates and other ones she sees on her route who are likely to have little of a Santa's visit. We appreciate the donations we've received and will welcome any others. Just call 665-2224, I had a liberal professor in seminary who always began his class session with prayer. But his attitude toward sin seemed to be "We can fix that." When we studied that Garden of Eden story where Even ate the forbidden fruit (which records the fall of man), he said with a chuckle that it was really a fall upward. I think he believed in the rise of man from primitive animal existence to the wonders of civilization and modernity. I once asked if he was conservative or liberal and he replied with a twinkle in his eye, "I'm a conservative liberal." And he was quite active in AA. which was rather new back in those early fifties. But when I decided to stay beyond my divinity degree to get a masters, I went to ask another new existentialist to be my faculty advisor. I'd become such a fan that I wore a bow tie and crew cut just like the new professor. But he said he had too many already to take me. So I went back to Dr.J.T.Carlyon, who accepted. He had a daily "sermonette" on Dallas KRLD, and I would listen, though I disagreed with him on almost everything (except prayer), He once described the Bible like a menu you get to order from. "You don't pick what helps you" he said. We finished my work on a thesis and I got both degrees at the same graduation there at SMU in '53. But I went the other direction from liberal. Back then we were called "fundamental," though that wasn't accurate. We took all the Bible seriously instead of literally. And evangelical fit our position, which focused on the evangel (message of salvation). Since "Gospel" means the same good news message, we could have been named Gospellers. But that sounds more like a music group, doesn't it. And I still recall what a kind and gentle person Dr.Carlyon was. He even had a radiance and usually a smile on his face. He once listed the five tenants of Calvinism and cut out the first word of each as being too radical: "Absolute" sovereignty of GOD, "Total" depravity of man, "Limited" atonement in Christ, "Final" perseverance of saints, and "Infallible" word of the Bible. But he was radical too, about showing love.
12-16-04
I appreciate seeing a creche on front lawns, espcially when lighted at night. The Methodist one in PV is a project of the Crusader Class each year. It has shepherds and wise men there at the same time, a scene so familiar to us. But Scripture has the Maji coming later. In fact, their arrival is Epiphany rather than Christmas. Yet the Greek Orthodix Christians wait until Jan.6 for their Christmas. Just think of the bargains you could get buying gifts for that date. Whch remnds me to mention Niece wanting donations for her project I mentioned before. Just call 665-2224. Remember that two different dimensions of the Gospel are celebrated in annual festivals of Christmas & Easter, the Incarnation and the Atonement. Incarnation means GOD coming into human existence as one of us and the Atonement means that therefore we can be re-created back into the divine image and likeness that was marred by Adam's fall into depravity and sin. The wicked, corrupted, fallen nature of mankind (earth creature) could only be replaced by the sacrificial offering of One perfect specimen (celestial being) to be replicated supernaturally in all other earth creatures who look with faith to that Sacrifice (the Lamb of GOD). So that Pascal Lamb born in Bethlehem was spotless and without blemish. He then willingly offered Himself up in Jerusalem as Abraham had been willing on Mt.Moriah to offer up Isaac way back in ancient time. Remember the boy's question of his father, "Where is the lamb," to which Abraham replied prophetically "GOD will provide the lamb." So what GOD didn't require of Abraham, He did of Himself. But first He had to descend into this physical universe from the divine region, Shemayim (Hebrew name of highest heaven which is a spiritual realm more vast than all our astronomy can calculate. Matterially we measure out time and space, but it's dimensions are eternity and infinity and it's the domain of those mighty beings called angels). Some angels came to shepherds in the fields to announce their Creator's original plan, which split all time into before and after. A cuuple of years later some wealthy astrologers (possibly Persians) were guided by a star to Jerusalem and then to the home in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary had been living in a house with the divine Child. We get all this information from MT and LK but MK only as MK and JN don't mention it, though JN expresses the Incarnation as "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have beheld His glory, as of the only begotten of the Father." Such is the wonder and miracle of this Nativity season. Thus we keep watch now for His return as King of kings & Lord of lords. Above the PV creche is Gabriel ready to sound the trumpet of His coming again when the dead in Christ shall rise first and together with them we that are still alive are caught up to be with our Lord in renewed and glorified bodies like the one with which He arose from the dead. Noel, Noel.
ANGELFIRE 12-21-04
It's angel season, a subject that provokes me to think of the supernatural. They were the original creation before the big bang, and will exist when this physical universe finally fades away (which will be the result of it's billions of years of expansion at nearly the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. So they are transcendent beings that seem frightful to mere mortals. No wonder the shepherds were so afraid then that one stood beside them when the glory of the LORD (shekinah) shown round about. In the earliest mention of one in the Bible is the cherubim with a flaming sword stationed to guard against any going back into the Garden of Eden. That's all very poetic, but later the three that visited Abram and received his hospitality are called "men." So their divine identity was concealed, though it wasn't just a figurative designation. Since "angel" means messenger of God, it would seem that humans can serve as such in certain situations determined by time and place. Or they could simply speak in our consciousness when as the apprehension of an event's meaning i.e. the voice that told Abraham not to harm Isaac after he saw a ram caught in the thicket. Our GOD uses events for His vocabulary and perception may be by seeing, hearing or both. HIS vocabulary is happenings, thus the prophets discerned what things meant and spoke in language for men to understand, though all could have see it for themselves had they been as attentive. So the prophets were angels indeed from right here on earth. And since they were all male, it causes me wonder that today angels are seen as feminine. That's certainly contrary to Scripture, at least in the Old Testament because they are immortal and don't need to reproduce. But Hebrew, the OT language, had no neuter gender.. So if they are transgender (above and beyond that creaturely attribute), either sex is true for them. But not for the LORD who is so masculine that we don't consider Him neuter at all. In fact He has begotten His own Son from all eternity. C.S.Lewis once wrote that His masculinity is so extreme that it makes all creation feminine in comparison. That connects with the Hebrew word for "soul" which is a feminine term. And since angels are also part of creation, we humans just came to realize that they had to be feminine if not female. They are not a part of GOD, but separate beings the same as humans (who never turn into angels). I've wanted to think of them like rays of light from the sun, or radiations from the divine One. Such fits well into phiosphical monism and Yahweh Sabbaoth (Lord of Hosts hints that way). But that's disproven by those angels which rebelled under Lucifer's lead and became the devil with his minions, a third of the heavenly host. Besides Lucifer, only two others are named in the Bible, though the apocrhypha names a couple more and the book of Mormon yet another. But St.Paul wants against the worship of angels, and thus books given by them i.e. Mormon and Qu'ran. Paul said "though an angel of light should bring any other Gospel, don't be taken in." I read the Psalm verse "He knoweth the number of the stars. He calleth them all by name" as reference to angels rather than physical entities like Sol, our sun. My dad had the book Uranta that amed a hierachy of angelic managers from galexy clusters down to sub atomic particles. But I saw it as fantasy even though there's foundation in Chrciago that promotes the book written back in the thirties. It claims to be divine revelation, falsely I believe. Angels are primarily messengers of GOD, but can also be agents of Providence. Science depends on natural laws controlling creation, and tonite on Nova there's a report on "string theory" that ties them all together as "the theory of everything." I hope to see it, but I'll ask who enforces those laws: gravity, electro-magnetism, the strong force and the weak force? Angels, I say. 12-28-04 It's being called "a disaster of Biblical proportions," the Asian Tsunamis. Remember how Jesus said "As in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man." What an awesome sign this calamity is giving us that this world is so temporary. But our Lord also told us that "heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words will never pass away." Thank heaven for the Gospel and the security that there is in the Savior for all who call upon Him. ANGELFIRE 12-27-94 Monte is an inmate at LARC who serves as chaplain's assistant. So he conducts the chapel services where I lead singing and Glen Simonson teaches the Bible. But Monte knows more Scripture than anyone there because he's read the Book from cover to cover dozens of times and can give chapter and verse on about every subject brought up. He's a warm person and sets the tone of divine love in our services. As we sang some Scripture verses from Isaiah, I was telling the guys that he is quoted more in the New Testament than any other prophet. Monte replied that it must be the reason Isaiah's book, first of those on prophecy, is a "little Bible" in the center of the big one. Then he pointed out that Isaiah has 66 chapters, just as our Bible has 66 books. And Isaiah divides into two main parts just like the Old and New Testaments. There are 39 chapters in the first part and 27 in the second, the same as there are books in the Old and New Testaments. The first part is largely bad news of coming judgement from Assyria and Babylonia, but from chapter 40 onward it's "Comfort ye my people" with good news that will follow the captivity. Then he said the number of Isaiah, 23rd in the list, meant something, but I forget what. Still, I've found it something to ponder. Seems more than coincidence doesn't it? I get so many Scripture songs from Isaiah which I like to sing. And I've read it again since Monte told us those details. Just because they are prison inmates doesn't mean they can't be serving the Lord. Monte does for sure. Though he's been in there for some 27 years now, he's become a witness for Christ in that dismal place. He even remains joyful. I think it's from "the blessed hope" byTitus in 2:13 that sustains him. That's another reason I call the old tower in downtown Pauls Valley "blessed hope tower." It was a century old last year, the same century Bob Hope lived and gave America so much encouragement through dark days. Now I've just learned of a book by a Mark McCutcheon that is titled "The Final Theory" and I'm eager to see it. Perhaps it establishes the intelligent design proof of our Creator GOD as it brings together the four basic physical forces of the universe, something Einstein longed to grasp but never did. "The Final Theory" (unified field theory) of physics may be like the book of Isaiah is for the Bible. It would answer the final question of "how" scientifically just as Christ is the answer to a "why" for all things. Agape/divine love is the end and purpose of everything and will reign supreme at the return of our Lord Jesus. We may be seeing a final sign of His great appearing to destroy all the wickedness that abounds, just as it did at the time of the flood described in Genesis. EVANGELICAL THEME SONG tune "The Star Spngled Banner"as inspired by the flag at I-35 & highway 29.
"Hail to Jesus our King," in high heaven they sing: all those spirits restored in GOD's image and likeness; Till He comes once again for His church pure from sin, when this earth that GOD first made a home for the righteous, is fully recreated, restored in pure love; and at last handed up to THE FATHER above; beyond time GOD's Kingdom in eternity, final home for souls reborn, with King Jesus 'twill be.