The California Wildfires

I have lived in California twice. Once From December of 1970 to July of 1971 in Sacramento when I served in the USAF at McClellan AFB. It was at a church in Sacramento where I got saved in January 1971. From February 1979 to August that year, I lived first in Monterey and then in Salinas when I worked at Ft. Ord as a civilian doing odd jobs such as driving a laundry truck. From the end of August, I moved back to Sacramento and worked at McClellan AFB at the logistics center up to January 1980. I loved the California climate. I thought California was a great place to live. Crime then was low and the Californians were friendly. Plus I met many Christians with whom I fellowshipped.

I am now very concerned for my friends living in the Los Angeles area. I visited them in December of 2014 and was in West Hollywood for a week. My prayer is not only for their safety, but that any loss they may experience doesn’t harden their hearts toward God. Unfortunate circumstances can make us either bitter or better. When we perceive something bad happening, we should call out to God for His help!

One lady I know who was raised in a missionary family in Japan and who has been taught the Bible most of her life now lives in a suburb just to the west of Los Angeles. She wrote a post on Instagram saying, “Let’s invite the rain.” Is that something we should say? I wrote a comment to her post, “How about prayer?” Sad to say she renounced her faith in the Word of God. I pray this experience will cause her to cry out to the Lord for deliverance from her doubts and the fires.

The Lord allows things to happen for a reason. Many American Christians are asleep spiritually due to the infiltration of Jesuit doctrines in churches, doctrines such as Futurism that puts the Antichrist in the unknown future in order to blind their eyes so they don’t see him in the present. If you are a true Protestant, you absolutely know who the Antichrist is! The Pope!

Is the Lord allowing bad things to happen to California to cause God’s people to draw closer to Him? Have churches in California stood up to Gavin Newsom’s liberal woke policies and unbiblical ideologies? John MacArthur is the only pastor in California I know of who stood up to Newsom and kept his church open during the pandemic. I don’t agree with Pastor MacArthur’s dispensationalism and futurism, but what he says about governments being the primary enemies of God’s people is certainly true. The Scriptures and history verify it. May all God’s people in California seek the Lord through all the suffering they may be experiencing.

Below is an email I received on January 9th. from my very good friend Steve who lives in Huntington Beach, about a 40-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles. My comments are in parentheses.

Hi James:

Please keep the miserable folks in our Southland in your prayers. What an awful and worst of all fire tragedies. This is now the most destructive fire LA County has ever encountered in its history. It could have been avoided if the people in this State had used common sense like our predecessors of a hundred years ago. They used to clear the forests in California of dead foliage and sold the wood to bolster the State Treasury. What a concept! But here we are well into the 21st century and Secularism, Communism, RCs, & Laodicean Protestantism et al, are the overwhelming beliefs of the state voters.

We have lots and lots of water, but the fire hydrants barely had any pressure to help quell the fires. And while Joe Biden and Gassom Newsom hung around at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), there was belated usage of fire planes that could have been used to push back significantly against the fires. In fact, LAFD Chief is a lesbian, and she has her workers spending more time on “Bias Training,” than fire prevention. This is a fact! We are in a REAL MESS, James! But I’m sure you’re aware of some of these things. (I wasn’t!)

As far as the fires coming near us, we’ve been safe here without too much wind. In fact, this past afternoon the winds had died down to normal levels. What I’m going to tell now, you don’t have to believe or take too seriously. Because I cannot prove it, and most people would say that I finally have gone nuts! But several days ago, when we were alerted to the fierce winds coming our way and probable fires, I decided to ask the Lord to keep us safe here and put down the winds as much as was in His will to do so. This was the first time I had ever seen such mild wind and weather when the Santa Ana’s unleashed their fury, James. (Praise God! What an answer to prayer!) I’m a native of California, a prune picker they used to call us back in the day, and I can honestly say that I believe God for His own purposes, answered my prayer. Our winds here never got out of the teens and our air quality remained good to moderate these past several days. But all around us, others were in bad shape weather-wise. Not to mention those who have lost their homes, have no insurance to rebuild, and probably have lost all hope!

Like I said, you don’t have to believe me, James. (But I do!) But I have given God all the glory for this miracle in my eyes. I figure the worst this puts me in, is I was gravely mistaken. Why would God protect my family and city neighbors and not the countless hundreds of thousands of others from these horrible fires??? (I believe it’s because Steve is actively serving the Lord!) So, if my perception and prayers were really in vain, I guess I’ll have to account for it on Judgement Day. But in the meantime, I’m thanking God for His mercy and protection. Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Gen. 18.14) (Nothing is!)

So now I’m praying that God would wake up this state before it’s too late. But as Jesus was never able to perform many mighty miracles because of the unbelief of people as told in the Gospels, I’m not too optimistic about this. But you never know. Prayer changes things…..even me! I certainly need to continually grow in grace. That’s for sure. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Josh. 24.15)

In Christ,

Steve

Links to news sources about the fires that Steve sent me

Download a PDF file of this article.

A Method for Prayer -- by Matthew Henry

California Fires - What We Know - By Ralph Epperson

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Comments

The California Wildfires — 3 Comments

Terri on January 11, 2025 at 12:19 pm said:

I believe God answered his prayer.

Reply ↓
- James Arendt on January 11, 2025 at 12:27 pm said:
  
  Amen!
  
  Reply ↓
- Brian Carlson on January 11, 2025 at 1:29 pm said:
  
  So do I.
  It has inspired me to go and do likewise.
  God Bless you my friend!
  
  Reply ↓

James Japan

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