CHARIOTS OF FIRE

Tonight I was watching "The Miracle of Israel" narrated by Leonard Nimoy on PBS.  Some veterans of the war that began after the establishment of Israel were talking about miracles, and one of them said that he was lying wounded where he had been run over by a Syrian tank.  while unable to move, he saw some Syrian troops turn back toward them, but there were angels in the field protecting him.  The Syrian troops saw them and turned back.

I was struck by many witnesses to the miracles because when I was serving as an Air Force Officer working with F-15 pilots who intercepted Soviet bombers along the coasts of Alaska I heard about something very extraordinary.  We often hosted squadrons of other fighter planes to exercise with us  during the summer, just as we visited other places, including a squadron of F-15 pilots in Komatsu, Japan in the spring of 1985. 

Most of the time our visitors came from the US, but during the summer of 1985, our fighter wing had visitors from Israel.  They were pilots from an F-15 squadron and flew in exercises with our pilots.  I happened to have been on leave in the Lower Forty-Eight, as Alaskans call the non-contiguous 48 states, so I was sorry not to have met them.

Nevertheless, when I returned to Alaska and caught up on what had happened while I was gone, I was touched to see a beautiful photograph of Israeli F-15s in formation over Masada. 

As you probably know, Masada is a fortress on a mountain top in the Judean Desert built by the Idumean King, Herod the Great from 37-31 B.C.  As reported by the Roman historian Josephus Flavius, during the Jewish uprising against the Roman Empire in 66 A.D., Masada became the site of a last stand by the Zealot rebels. 

Besieged by the Roman army around 1,000 people perished in fires they started by themselves in the Masada fortress rather than be taken by the Roman soldiers.  Then in 70 A.D., Jerusalem was sacked, the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish inhabitants of the Roman province of Palestine, the territory of Israel and Judea were killed or fled the area. 

Masada

According to some people of faith and biblical scholars, there are prophecies about the Jewish return to the Holy Land in the writings of every prophet in The Hebrew Bible (The Old Testament) except for the Book of Jonah.  In 1948, nearly 2000 years after the Dispersal, those prophecies were fulfilled when the modern State of Israel was created. 

In honor of the Masada martyrs, there is a kind of battle cry concerning their sacrifice that reflects the attitude of the Jewish people concerning their homeland.  This battle cry was written as a  caption over the photograph of the Israeli F-15s over Masada: "Never Again."  All the members of the squadron who visited us signed their names around the border.

I was very touched to see the photo, but the most amazing revelation about the visit of the Israeli F-15 pilots was something my American F-15 pilot friends told me.  Some of the Israeli pilots had been on active duty in 1982 during that part of the Lebanon conflict.

Lebanon Conflict

All military pilots spend time talking about their feats of flying, especially if they have been in combat.  During a time of sharing these types of stories, one of the Israeli pilots told my friends about something he saw when he was flying in support of the military operation.  He said that when he and a flight of F-15s were flying near the Golan Heights during the conflict, that they saw chariots of fire with angels suspended over the area!  He credited the Lord and the angels with their victory.

Let me affirm that these were very rational men.  Many of them were well-educated aeronautical engineers.  They were, for the most part, not the kinds of people you would think would be prone to expressing whimsical or fantastic ideas or images.  And at the time every fighter pilot I knew and everyone interested in flying identified the music "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis with fighter pilots and their jets.

The biblical reference "chariots of fire" comes from the narration about Elisha in 2Kings 6:8-18. 

Elisha and the Chariots of Fire

You can look it up if you feel like it sometime.

Anyway . . . I just thought I would share that with you.   

If you get a chance to watch the program, I think you might be interested.  I especially enjoyed the references to miracles and to prophecies that have been fulfilled -- and prophecies still to come.  If you haven't seen it, you might want to sometime --

The Miracle of Israel

Hope you will have a peaceful night's rest Beloved, with dreams of God's angels who watch over you and everyone you love.

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