17 February 2013
Dear Phyllis,
It seems the worst of winter is behind us here in Thailand. We are back to sleeping without a blanket over us at night, and the day temperature is up in the 90s again. Fortunately, the rainy season isn't upon us yet so we still have blue sky everyday; except the smoke is starting to build so there is no blue sky.
Last Friday we had the biggest break I have had since living in this muban (housing area). I mentioned last week how the Lord led us to become friends with a lovely couple who are highly influential people. Dr (PHD) Bancha and his wife Boom asked me to make a simple shelf for them, and fix some cabinets. I was delighted to have this request as it opened the door to a good personal relationship with them. Friday afternoon I got the shelf installed, and invited them to attend a Bible study in our home that night. Singha and Lec, from the kindergarten, said they would come, and this looked like the seeds to what I hope will develop into a serious muban Bible study. Both couples promised to come at 7:00 for the Bible study. I realized that is us unreasonable to expect anyone to come on time in Thailand but by 8:00 I was thoroughly discouraged. Pammy suggested, “Let's pray”. We did, but I'm sure the Lord was not impressed with my prayer. I simply told Him how disappointed I was, and wanted to quit everything. Then, much to my surprised, by 8:10 both couples showed up. The Banchas brought their two daughters, age 2 and 8, and their daughter's music teacher. By 8:30 we settled down to really get into a serious study. What happened after that was truly amazing. Both couples are totally void of any Bible knowledge, although Mr. Bancha had spent some time in Israel, and had a Christian room mate when he was in college.
I am tremendously exercised over world events at the moments. I cannot tell you how convinced I am that we are right at the wire. I don't believe the end time is near. I intensely believe THIS IS IT. I have a desperate compulsion to warn everyone I meet about what I believe is about to break out world wide.
I vividly recall the day when I was in the Fight'n 40th Fighter Squadron at Yokota. It was August 1961. I had been on the alert pad for duty that day and was just going home. The maintenance crews were down-loading some missiles, and regs required that a commissioned officer had to supervise it. As I was standing there watching, an airman came running across the ramp with a message from the communication center. We had just gone to an increased state of readiness. Being in an Air Defense fighter squadron, we were the firemen of the world. We were the front line of national defense. If war ever broke out, we were the men that had to stop the bad guys before they could get to America to drop atomic bombs.
There was what was known as the DEFCON code with five states of readiness. Five was “No sweat. Everything is fine, and there is no danger”. Four was “This is a dangerous world, and someone better sit up tonight to watch the candy store”.' We were always at DEFCON 4, which meant that there was a ring of fighter bases with air defense fighters on 5 minutes alert – 24-7 – all over the world. DEFCON 3 was, “This is really serious! There is a strong possibility that war could break out any minute. Everything must be cranked up to max alert”. DEFCIN 2 was, “This is no joke. Here it comes! They are on their way. Enemy bombers are presently under radar surveillance and we are minutes away for mushroom clouds”. DEFON 1 was, “This is it! It has officially started. War is now underway . The 3rd World War has now begun.”
That afternoon, at 5:30, as I stood there watching the down-loading, we were shocked to hear we had just gone to DEFCON 3. It had never happened before while I was in service. Later during the Cuban missile crises, in 1962, the world went to DEFCON 3. We had no orders, but it seemed like the better part of wisdom to stop down-loading missiles, and put them back on the plane. Ten minutes later another airman came running across the ramp from com center with the notice that we had just gone to DEFCON 2 That had never happened! That meant that war was immanent. Then ten minutes an ashened airman came running saying that they had just received an official notice that we had gone to DEFCON 1. The 3rd World War was now officially on! All aircraft have in their flight record, various states of flight safety. A red X means that bird is unsafe to fly. We got an order saying, “Even if it is on a red X – FLY IT! We had a max recall and all the pilots came dashing in from home where they were eating supper. Everyone got set up in their own aircraft, and the entire squadron was ready to fly at any moment. Our Operations Officer was trying to get in contact with our headquarters, but 5th Air Force Headquarters in Fuchu was bedlam. He couldn't get through. We had no idea what had happened. All we knew was the war had broken out. You talk about a tense moment – that was it. Safety procedure with missiles was very strict. But airmen were running across the ramp with missiles under their arms slamming them on aircraft. Safety regulation went up in smoke. Thirty pilots sat silently in the operation room with stress on their faces like you would not believe. The strongest thing that came to my mind was, “It is too late now to talk to someone about the Lord. This was no time to say, “Have you ever heard about the Four Spiritual Laws?” If you weren't prepared for eternity before, it was too late to do personal work now”. Airmen were too busy loading missiles, and pilots were concerned about having to fly combat missions in a few minutes with millions of live depending upon whether or not they could stop enemy bombers.
After about twenty minutes the major was able to get through to 5th Air force Headquarters and find out what was going on. It was Korea. Something had broken out in Korea. Relief. At least it wasn't New York, Washington, or Los Angles.
A pilot had made a navigational error in Korea and strayed too far north. When he realized where he was, he made a course correction to 180 (south). But North Korean Migs chased him home. When the Migs penetrated into South Korea, the South Koreans scrambled their Air Force. When that happened, the North sent up all their fighters, and the sky was filled with fighters all over South Korea.
Fortunately, the flight time for a Mig is fairly short. It has about an hour of fuel. The North Koreans ran out of fuel, and the South Koreans decided it was time for kimchi; and the war was over. Miraculously no one got shot down. We were sitting in our operation room waiting for the next instruction when they backed off the DEFCON to 2, and then to 3. And then they moved it back to 4, and said we could go home to finish supper – if anyone could eat.
A couple weeks later I saw a friend who had been in Korea, at the Officers Club at Yokota. In a brief chat I remarked, “I heard you had some excitement at Pad C at Kunsan the other day.” He looked at me grimly and replied, “It was no joke”. For the first time in history they pulled the safety pins on the atomic bombs and scrambled the nuclear strike force. Eighteen aircraft sat on the end of the runway at Kunsan loaded with atomic bombs waiting for instruction to take off and bomb North Korea. That is a story that has never been published.
Somehow I have an ominous feeling that we are months away from something major that will trigger end time prophecy. As we see the events that are happening world wide, to me, it looks like we are watching a missile that has been launched, and it is now streaking across the sky on its course and go BANG. The Lord along knows how much time we have, but it is not idle speculation to suggest we should be busy about the business we have of warning people, and offering them a shelter in Jesus.
I shared this deep conviction I have with the folks last Friday night. There are some amazing things in the Scripture, and the Lord has shared with us a great deal about what is shortly about to happen. But to get to that, it was necessary to lay a foundation about who Israel is, and God's dealing with His ancient people. If anyone thinks things like this can't happen today, all they have to do is look at the biblical record, and human history. What makes people think that America is exempt from the judgment of God is only the most grievous delusion. Dennis Turner told me how he was in a bank in Singapore days before the collapse of the city, listening to a lady argue with a bank teller. He thought in his heart, “Lady, don't you realize that there is a war going on?” Somehow the lady was no more concerned about what was about to happen than if there was only a warning for heavy rain. Jesus told us that in the days of Noah there were wedding parties and everyone was planning on things to keep going on forever – until the rain began to fall. He promised that it would be the same way in the days of His coming. Business as usual. It wasn't business as usual when the Japanese took Singapore. It wasn't business as usual when the rain came down in the days of Noah. And it won't be business as usual when the shattering end time events begin to happen here. I don't mean to be an alarmist, but I can't read the Bible and look at news on my computer without being seriously concerned.
What I'm trying to say is that we had a very good time last Friday night. It wasn't a matter of folks sitting through a boring Bible study looking at their watches. For an hour and a half everyone sat there with a serious look on their faces. At 10:00 o'clock I said, “There are some vital things I want to show you from the Bible ... but that will have to be next week.” Hopefully they will be back next week with increased interest. And I hope they might bring some friends. This could be the seed of a major prayer for a Bible study in this muban.
Kichkun was busy last week and asked me if I would take the message today. Reluctantly, I said I would. I really had nothing to talk about all week. Saturday night I tried to get in touch with the Lord to see what He wanted to say. But I fell asleep before Jesus answered the phone. I called again at 5:30 this morning but was unable to get the Lord on the line. Then at 7:00 I finally felt like I had the thrust of what the Lord wanted to say to us. I decided to continue the series I had started three months ago on the loveliness of Jesus. Oh how I wish I could lift Him up and set before all how wonderful He is! But in this, I feel like a boy trying to put his arms around Mt. Fuji and hold Fuji up to show everyone how beautiful that mountain is. Only the Holy Spirit is capable of revealing to us the beauty of Jesus.
As I have told you several times before, the best description I know of Christ is in the Song of Sol 5:10-16. There are twelve points and three are in verse 10. Previously I covered the fact that Christ is white (clean), and secondly ruddy – His humanity. The third point is that He is “the fairest among ten thousand”. Or a better translation is, that He is the flag bearer. I gave you that message a couple of weeks ago, and won't repeat it now. But it came out quite different than any previous message. I told how the-name-of-the-game is move the flag. To illustrate that I had six young people come forward. Two boys held up their guitars as flags, and we had a pushing contest in the front of the church. I showed how Jesus came to claim back for the Father what had been lost to the devil. And explained how He did it. Then I talked about Jesus moving the flag in their hearts. The Lord helped us in an unusual way. Praise God I believe the Lord got His point across this morning.
Lord willing, we still have one more week to move the flag for Jesus here. Let's do it.
bill
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