Israel In Pictures and Prophecy I

Color to this whole thing and in case you don't know it, Mack is a student of the word and has been teaching the word for quite a while here at North Way and while doing the trip he took 26 or so 28 or 30 pages of notes on the trip and has an awful lot to add to what I'm going to share with you and it was Mack and Susie and Carol and myself and then we went with a group from primarily from Charlotte, North Carolina from the church down there that we were connected with and that's how the trip came to pass. Now let's look at Ezekiel chapter 11. All right, I'll give you 10 seconds. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Who has it? Yes Okay, for those of you who may not be aware of the chronology of this one of the most astounding ingredients of the reality of this nation is the fact that it was a nation and identifiable people with their own rulers and leaders and and form of government all those kinds of identifying characteristics their own language and then in what year did they cease to become a nation? In what year were they after of course, I mean after Babylonian and all that but when was it? about 7073 AD and some historians say there was another little bit of an uprising in 135 AD when they tried again, but then they were obliterated but most historians say 73 AD and we're going to look at Masada where that last final expression of the identity of the Jews as a people was was manifested but the Lord said prophetically to Ezekiel hundreds of years before that here's what he was going to do. Look at this Ezekiel 11 verse 17 Therefore say this is what the sovereign Lord says I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered and I will give you back the land of Israel again, see the Lord said Yeah, it's true that you're being scattered throughout and most of you know that there was a reason for this scattering Well, what was the reason why the Jews lost their identity? Initially, what did they do wrong? Yeah, well, it's just you know lump it in basic disobedience, right? I mean they just disobeyed the Lord they didn't do what God said. They didn't keep the laws of the covenant They they were punished. But what was their most grievous sin? They rejected the Messiah now the Penalty for rejecting the Messiah was nearly 1,900 years 1,900 years of not existing but folks something that so impacted me was can you think of another nation? That existed and then didn't exist for a long period of time and then existed again Another group of people that had an identity and were scattered throughout the world and then came back together again You see the sense of God being the one that's orchestrating This thing is so powerful because it just does never happen. Did you know that eight other? languages have been Made extinct and were were sought to be restored in this century eight other languages But only the Hebrew language has been restored as a spoken language in this century of The total of nine that tried eight failed but the Hebrew language successfully has been restored as a spoken language today And you can you can write that all off to coincidence and you can say well, you know I guess they just have a lot of That's right, but really what it is, it's the hand of God Because God has set himself to restore the people Restore them as a nation and we'll look at the end of this evening And what does that mean to us in terms of the prophetic time clock that's ticking to its conclusion now as we go through this Presentation we're going to interrupt it at different times and Mack and I'll make some comments We want you to feel free to ask some questions if you have them I want you to be very kind and not laugh at the photographers work Okay, we're not dealing with you know, WPXI or TAE here. We're dealing with good old me Not even thinking about doing this with the video actually There are some scenes that have been edited out that were unfit for human Viewing and if you most of the time the sound will be pretty low, so you're not distracted, but I occasionally goes up you may hear things whispered like pet names and Stuff you got to you know, just give me some grace here. All right, just think of yourself All right. So what we're going to begin with today if we could have the first overhead overhead All right What I do it might take them up there maybe Yeah Can't put up unless you have it. All right What we're going to be looking at as we begin is the first Day of our of our trip. We landed in Tel Aviv and then drove over by bus It's only about a 45 minute ride from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem it's a extremely Hilly country and Lots of terraces and all the hills which I think you'll pick up on as we watch the video but what you're going to see initially is the view of the eastern wall of Jerusalem of The old city and if I can just pick this up quickly, we're going to be standing right here on the Mount of Olives looking down on the eastern wall of the old city of Jerusalem and You'll notice right away that very identifiable landmark the the Golden Dome or the Dome of the Rock Which as we'll discuss in a few moments is a very very Controversial piece of real estate probably the most contested piece of real estate on the planet and so you'll be viewing it from the Mount of Olives literally from where Jesus often spoken where he After his crucifixion and resurrection ascended to heaven, so it's a Very powerful beginning, but this is literally how our trip chronologically happened So that's why we're going to begin there and what you'll see as we look on here you'll see some Things that are old and very ancient looking and some things which are quite new So let's take a look here and see how we We can do with perspective. All right Okay, if you can't see the video screen, this is what I was going to ask you to do a few moments ago I would say this if you're back there where Scott is You're in deep trouble unless you've got great eyes So I see 30 or 40 chairs in here, then I don't think anyone would mind you coming up There's 20 right here in this section. If you want to move up right now This is the time to do it if you would rather not that's okay, too But you're gonna have a harder time. We don't have our big video screen Projectors, this is a good clear image, but back in the back. You may have a difficult time. Yes, please Okay, and up in the sound box. We're gonna We're gonna keep this sound down on this as we go through it. All right. All right Dean we have power on this screen. We're just ready to go All right, let's give it a try. What do you suggest Dean if I play again back up and see if I missed anything You can whistle while we're waiting for this Okay, we're staying on the Mount of Olives and we're looking south now. You can see a lot of the development And now we're coming back and there's the Dome of the Rock And right down there if you look carefully, I know it's jittering a little bit but that area down there is where the Garden of Gethsemane is and this is where Jesus came and took his triumphal march down through this valley up into The gate, okay Just in the very bottom of the screen you see that what appears to be a bunch of stones That's a that's a the oldest cemetery the oldest known cemetery in the world Most Experts think it's about 3,000 years old and It was desecrated During some of the wars that preceded and then reconstructed after 1947 but the reason why this is such an ancient Cemetery is because it is as close as people were allowed to be buried to the temple And the Jews felt that they wanted to be where the Messiah would be returning and be as close to him as possible all right now we're focusing and this is a Ross Rhodes who was the Tour leader the pastor actually spoke at North Way last August and he's talking here about Christ ascending and descending right here in the Mount of Olives Now if we could please I do want to have this part come up a little bit and what he's going to talk about and I think it's worth listening in on is the fact that when the scriptures say that when Jesus returns there's going to be a Significant Earthquake here and there's going to be a rift and Max going to tell you in a moment about The evidence that this is more than just somebody's Fascination with things are there is it up? Do we have some volume on that Dean? Okay, we were in the country for eight days Every single day was just like this like it was here today and From about April through the summer. It's a very very dry climate very very lovely climate here comes Here comes our resident authority for the evening they all work and in the back This is only for effect Now look at what happens Okay, go ahead Mac. Did you want to come in here? You can't think with that on is the problem as you were looking at the most visible symbol there is a dome of the rock and I know we're going to get into more details on that later But this is a very significant place from which we're taking these shots as Jay said to you Something Something about this is going to affect everybody in this room someday Because this is the place if you talk about deja vu. This is the place where Zechariah 14 talks about Messiah setting his foot back on the Mount of Olives and guess who's with him Saints Okay, anybody that's going to be with him, please wave Okay, so if you don't get to Israel in this lifetime You'll be seeing this at some point in time another thing that Jay said was a little bit of geology and since I'm the geologist part of this tour On this There are several references to the earthquake that's going to occur I don't know whether that causes a split or not and The place on which we were standing The word says that it will sever from literally part of it will go north and part of it will go south there will be a split down the middle of the Mount of Olives and the the valley will form east-west and It will be a great earthquake accompanying it And then the word says that there will be a river Actually two rivers. Maybe it's the same one, but at one part flowing behind where we're taking the picture down to Jericho and the Dead Sea and the other part flowing from Jerusalem into the Mediterranean Sea Okay, let's see, right here's Jerusalem here and There'll be a river flowing that way and a river flowing that way and the word also said that there will be trees planted by the river and I think you know the rest that part of the leaves are for the healing of the nations and so forth so But anyway, the event is that there will be a split there and One thing that's interesting you guys probably don't know that I have a geology background But I brought this up to the group that was there and Had to do something geologic and I got a hold of a satellite image map it was an infrared radar Not the visible range and it showed on the map Where a line goes from the Dead Sea right through where the Mount of Olives is right through Jerusalem Right into the Mediterranean Sea there's a fault zone that already runs Across there, and I showed the whole group that if anybody ever wants to see it. I have it at home the picture and so forth God could use that I have a suspicion that he might but It's there to be seen and understand geologists in Israel have found this as well. So What we're saying is the evidence now that wasn't Existent 20 years ago because we didn't have the satellite capability now says that Already in place is the evidence that there is a natural fault line there which not that God needs that I mean God can you know? He could create an earthquake and a fault wherever he wants to but it's already in place. All right, let's go back and listen as Ross Rhodes just describes what's going to happen and we'll We'll move it up and down Oh Geological explanation and we'll give you other things that will tell you what happens when the site comes the Geological explanation is that this mount is before here. We are Before Jerusalem, you can actually know exactly where it is. It's not after Jerusalem on the east side But this is the eastern gate. We'll get to that later, which is before Jerusalem on the east. That's where we are gives you location and This mountain this this Ridge shall be cut in half Please Remember it says men shall be married to his wife and he shall leave to her this The eclipse of division or east and toward the West this way Because it shall be a very great valley The mountain shall be moved toward the north this way and the other half of the mountain shall be moved toward the south. Which is this way. And there'll be a great valley If you take us up now, this gentleman is the guide our Hebrew guide. His name was Moni Aviv and he is a very articulate and bright knowledgeable individual he's not a Christian and He has been heavily evangelized over the last 15 or so years by some very passionate believers, but it's very interesting now. We can just drop the sound off in this part, Dean, and we'll go through here. If I do that, you do that. We'll just continue on. I'll let him come in a little bit, but his explanations were really lucid, and he brought a lot of understanding here. He's just basically going to talk for a moment about the fact that the Jews believe the same as the Christians do about the sequence of events once Jesus comes. They just believe he's coming for the first time. We believe he's coming for the second time, but we're consistent in what we believe about that. There's a good shot of the cemetery down below and the Garden of Gethsemane. Hold that for a second, Jacob. Okay. Come back a little bit. Yeah, just come back a little. You've got too much zeroed in there. Okay. You can't get anything to the left there, can you? I can do anything you want, Matt. All right, stop right there, then. You see the double arch on that? That is one of the names for it is the Eastern Gate. It has been sealed. In fact, Scripture says it shall remain sealed, and it is sealed to this day. You see that it is. Nobody's gone through there. As far as we know, it hasn't been opened since it was closed. I don't know how far back. That will be opened because the returning Lord, with his church, he will enter back into the temple. That is the gate that he has said that he will go through. So this is reserved for the returning Messiah, who we, of course, know came the first time. This is his second coming. But you see, this is where the Jew and the Christian converge. The two religions agree from the point of his return on, pretty much. But it's before that that they didn't accept the second coming, or the first coming. The reason I wanted a backup view is an interesting explanation from here. The day or the week that Jesus, the Passion Week, starting with Palm Sunday and going through that week, he stayed. You need to know where Bethany is. Bethany is right behind us. If we went about 200 feet behind us, there'd be a ridge of a hill, and you go down a steep hill. And Bethany is right about halfway down that hill. And Jesus would stay with with Martha and Mary and Lazarus at his home, get up, walk up the hill, walk down the hill, walk across the Kidron Brook, over by the East Gate, turn to the left, and enter by what they call the Halda Gate on the south entrance. And I wanted to see a picture of that because they just discovered the stairs last year going up to the Halda Gate from the original temple. Almost, well, yearly, they were discovering all kinds of new things that that are in the Bible. And it's just a constant discovery. Let's see if we swing back that way or not. That's the Eastern Gate, and there we are swinging back. Tell me when you see it, Matt. Oh, it's down to the left-hand corner. I'm intrigued more with the northern end. Okay. Now we're going to move on to the second focus, and that is on the Dome of the Rock itself. And this you'll find very fascinating. Turn the volume up just a little bit, Dean, so they can hear. This is what it sounds like. Oh, the last little couple there. 82 and 80. They were married six months. This is a honeymoon trip. And they were always sneaking off, you know. It was really weird. I just, I mean, we had to keep looking for them every place. It is true. They've married six months. Newlyweds. And she, I mean, she just had him. Now, come on now. We're going to get going. You'll hear every once in a while. Yeah, get ready, guys. Okay. You'll notice that there, you may not know that about 15% of the population of Israel is still Arab. And so you'll see Arabs intermingled everywhere, like right here. I have a picture of him standing there like that, but let's keep going here. This is a courtyard. I want to show you something on this. All right, I really recognize what I'm doing here. I hope you can see this. Let me get back to, are we upside down? Yeah. Notice, notice this right here. This is the original temple. This was Solomon's Temple, the most magnificent structure of history, right there. Something that really intrigued me, I didn't know about, was that King Herod, the Herod that was in power when Jesus Christ was born, the Herod that was such a maniacal killer, was also one of the greatest builders that had ever been known. In fact, he was not a Jew, and he was not a Roman, but he tried to please both. And so one of the things that he did to try to win the favor of the Jewish people was to rebuild their temple, even though it had been destroyed and then rebuilt to lesser glory in five, when they returned from exile. He wanted to make it the way it was, in all of its splendor. But he was such a builder that he didn't want to just do it on the scale, the little tiny scale that Solomon had. He wanted to do it. He didn't know what to do. He knew if he didn't, if he messed with the original plan that was in Scripture, the Jews would say, well, that doesn't count. It's not the real thing. So what he did is he rebuilt the temple as Solomon had designed it. But he added immensely to the space upon which it was built. And so now you see this huge rectangular space here. This whole area was added. He basically leveled off the top. This is Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham offered who? Isaac. And who do you believe the Muslims think was offered there? Ishmael. So they've been contesting that all along. But Herod leveled this all off and built this huge, enormous structure. And I don't know if you can see this. Come up later and see it. But it far, far exceeded the temple in its size. And it was huge in all of its dimensions. And over here you can get a good look at it if you come up. This, by the way, is a full-scale model of the city of Jerusalem. It is about the size, I would say, or at least two-thirds of the size of this sanctuary, done by hand. And you get a good feel for the various dimensions here. But Herod was a phenomenal builder. We can't even begin to get into all the different things that he did to demonstrate his acumen in that way. While you're looking at that, you see where it says, Court of the Gentiles? Yeah, the Court of the Gentiles. That facility that Herod built at Passover time, the population of Jerusalem at Jesus' time was about 90,000 to 100,000. During Passover, it was about 400,000. And 300,000 people at one time could get into the court. 300,000 at one time. 18,000 to 20,000 sacrifices per day. Yeah, I don't know if we ever have fully understood how much blood was sacrificed, and the meaning of all that to us as we understand our faith, which is an interesting question we may come back to in a bit. Okay, let's knock that off and go back here. Let me interrupt and say that is, by the way, that is pure gold. King Hussein, in what year was it, Mac? Just recently, within the last five to eight years, built the roof for $85 million and decided that if there was some way that he could impress the Muslims with his support of their holy place, he would do it. No one tries to rip it off, though. It's interesting. It is, by the way, it is now, it is a Muslim mosque. It is not a Hebrew mosque, okay? So when you go in, you have to obey their rules. The ladies had to have their arms covered, and if you showed up on a hot day with shorts on, which is appropriate for most touring, you had to wear, they would give you like a canvas skirt and throw that on, and you have to take your shoes and socks off. Okay? Before you get too far, Jay made a comment when I was there as we went inside. We can't go inside with the cameras. I can tell you what's in there. Basically, all that's in that thing is, in the middle, is a rock of limestone. The reason this is, well, Jay said, when he looked at it, he said, this has got to be probably the most holy place in the whole world for religion, because three world religions converge on one spot. Abraham, with Isaac and Ishmael, that was also the place where Solomon built the temple, and the Holy of Holies was located there. That's also the place where the Muslims say Muhammad ascended, and remember, Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives right across the way, and they said that Muhammad ascended from there, got the Koran, came back, and they even have his hoof print from the horse he was riding as he went up. Plus, it was used, when Jesus' time, this was Herod the Great's place, and sacrifices continued there. If there's any place in the world that World War III could be fought over, that's the place. If one or the other party did the wrong thing, you'd have a world war, period. A billion Muslims, a billion Christians or more, and then the Jews, and that's the place. Okay. All right, we're jumping over to this identifiable place, which is what? The Wailing Wall. Now, why did you call it the Wailing Wall? Because the Jews would be seen there day after day, week after week, wailing out their prayers to God. But they didn't call it the Wailing Wall, they called it the Western Wall, because it in fact is right here. Is that correct, Matt? Yep. It's the westernmost wall of the temple court. And this is as close as they could come without getting into the temple itself. So that's why they came to pray. And to this day, you can see, not too clearly, but there are Orthodox Jews there in their black garb right now. They're rocking there and doing their prayers and having quite a time of it. And the base of this wall is 70 feet below its current, what you're seeing. Now, most everything you see has been added on to. The original foundations are quite a bit lower. The singing is some other Christian groups that were there. That was somebody's Mercedes getting broken into. Although, there is evidence, as you can see, of security all the time. You will see soldiers with loaded weapons. There is a peace, but it's a tentative peace, although you never fear for security. I'll let Matt jump up here. This is a place he just started to salivate. We were seeing excavation even as we went, although Matt can't take too long on this one. All right. The archaeologists are now down at the base of the southwest of Herod's Temple, 60 to 70 feet below the current wall. That's the level on which Jesus actually walked. And every year, they're making progress up along the wall. In a few years, the Wailing Wall itself will be 70 feet higher or deeper. Also, because of these excavations, the southwest... Do you remember when Jesus was was tempted and taken to the pinnacle of the temple? For hundreds of years, it was thought that that was a southeast corner, but due to these excavations, they've now discovered that the southwest corner is higher than the southeast. So they've now moved the pinnacle to the southwest, which is this area here. So, what we're talking about now is right here. Okay? All right. We're going to move on now to two very well-known places to us as Christians. The first, the Garden of Gethsemane. One comment I need to make, if you're a Roman Catholic, don't take this in a personal way, but the Roman Catholics have always been very strong in real estate. I mean, they always knew a good investment when they saw it. So they own a lot of the really prime properties and have built their churches and have different places established there, and this is one of them. And they've preserved it to a large degree. In some cases, I would say Bethlehem was one of the places that was most disappointing in that it was just so covered with different kinds of paraphernalia. All right, here we go. We'll just go quickly through this part. Those are olive trees. And Gethsemane means place of pressing. Now, there's a neat symbolism there, even in the words, of course, in Christ's Prayer, but those trees are 2,000 years old. Look at their skin. I mean, they're still there. And still bearing olives, by the way. Look at the branches that come right out from the center of them. These kind of later shoots. Remember the psalm, As the Deer? That's what that's from. It's on the top of the church. Okay, now we're going to move into the Garden Tomb and Golgotha, first of all. This is quite fascinating. I'll just quickly tell you that this is right in the bustling part of the old city of Jerusalem, but this particular piece of by the British in 1892, because there was a fair amount of concern about the loss of some very significant Christian sites, and so the British bought it and preserved it. And they've done a marvelous job. Wait till you see the way that this has been held. Turn up just a little bit, please. You up there, Dean? Can we turn up just a little bit? It's not a wonderful place to start when the buses get going. The bus station was put here in 1956 on what was a vacant site when this was Jordan. It wasn't until 1967, of course, after the war. This was Israel. So this place, which is Golgotha, is right next to a bus station. So put yourself in downtown Pittsburgh at the Greyhound station and put this incredibly powerful place right next to it. And that's what you have. And now he's turning and looking at it and saying, you know, it's really quite something when the buses... And yet there's reason to believe that that authenticates it because they would have crucified people and in very public places, they wanted them to be seen and made a testimony of. And so that's what you're looking at there, right there. In fact, right between, you can see it now, that is Golgotha. The Greek word is Calvary. Calvary and Golgotha are the same, meaning the skull. And there it is. You can, even on there, you can see it. And that at one time was Solomon's Temple, where he mined the limestone for, or Solomon's Quarry for the limestone that he used for the temple. And it was at the base of this that we believe Jesus was crucified. ...hadn't even begun when this was Turkey, and it wasn't until the First World War that it ceased to be part of the Turkish Empire, for the love of history. Now, the English Christians purchased this site by voluntary contributions after a letter in the London Times of 1892. It was purchased in 1894 at a time when a number of people were beginning to raise questions about the site where our Lord was crucified and where he was buried and rose again. The first thing I want to say is this. It makes no difference to my faith as a Christian whether he was crucified here or there or somewhere else. The geography does not matter to me. The history matters greatly. I believe in a historical Jesus Christ who lived and died. And likewise the resurrection. It's a historical fact to me. If someone could conclusively disprove it, I'd have to pack up very sadly and go home and cease to be a Christian. Christ would just be a good moral teacher. He authenticates his claim to be son of God to me anyway by his glorious resurrection. ...now and went turning toward two eye sockets, and there's a broken bridge of a nose with sun on it. To the right, two eye sockets with a bridge of the nose. I'll see that pretty clearly. Now, he's going to say that ice and frost and so on and rain have eroded it. It was more distinctive earlier than it is now. ...ice and frost, and it's always been changing. Originally that was a fake face. But of course our Lord... This is the garden tomb. We'll just quickly touch on this one. ...his authority over death by raising Lazarus, just of course as he's demonstrating it even more remarkably by his own resurrection. And really that's where I'd like to leave it with you. There are words on... This is just to prove that I was there. Jesus Christ proved that he was the son of God by his resurrection. Alright, we're going to move on now and head down to the... Take a long trip by bus down to Masada. This is just a quick little tour. Here's Jerusalem, and we're going to get on a bus and go south. It's 2,400 feet from Jerusalem down to the floor. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on the earth. No, it's actually 3,600 feet because Jerusalem is 2,400 feet. Right, you're right. It's 1,300 feet below. So it's 3,600 feet of elevation from Jerusalem down to the Dead Sea. So it is quite a long descent. And you're now 1,200 feet below sea level. And right down in here somewhere is Masada. And I don't have time to tell the story, but how many of you know the story of Masada basically? The reason why it's so powerful is because of what it meant to the nationalism of the Jews. But let's just go on. Listen, I want to tell you something beautiful. Before I do it, there's a little clip. I forgot this. This is where our guide is explaining the Hebrew Holocaust Museum or Yad Vashem. And I can't tell you how passionate they are about this. I mean, it is a very, very powerful part of who they are. As you'll hear him say in about a two-minute clip here, they devoutly believe that this must be maintained as a remembrance to their people and to their children and their children's children. And it is something that is hard to describe in terms of their identity, but they feel very passionate about it. And I included this clip just because sometimes in your most passionate moments, you still can't control what's happening. As you'll see, somebody walks in on this scene. And it's kind of funny. Here we go. They like to visit Masada two or three times in their schooling years. They'll visit Yad Vashem two or three times in their schooling years, in elementary school, in infantry, and then in high school, and then in the army. They'll bring them again. We'll see them come down. We'll bring them back again to show them why do we need to fight. And so, in the retrospective, this was a very important moment because I want you to understand, this institute or this place you're going to visit, in my humble opinion, is not only a place that commemorates 6 million Jews, which is important in itself. It is, in my humble opinion, a far more important duty, and that is to educate. To educate ourselves, first of all, not to forget, ever, and by this, not making the world forget. And I'll tell you why. And I'll... You happen to know where the Historical Museum is? Yes, very well. Thank you. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. He just walked over and said, Excuse me, do you happen to know where the Historical Museum is? And he's right in the middle of this. It just... That captured his emotion for a moment. We're walking into a recent addition. this is the Children's Holocaust Memorial, which was donated by a family from California. There are three candles in this memorial that burn all the time, but there's mirrors in this room that make it look like an infinite number of lights, and constantly around the clock, the names of the children that were killed are read out loud. That's what you'll hear. 1.5 million children. 1.5 million children. Reading the names and the ages. Now we'll head on down to Mitzvah Day. See, that was the day of Serk, is one of them. Go right down there. 3.4 million. Masada is about 1500 feet above the canyon floor. It was the place where approximately 900 to 1,000 Jews in the year 70 A.D. when the Jewish rebellion took place, and they tried to get free of the Roman rule, they were crushed by the Romans, and Jerusalem was taken over. And about 1000 Jews fled to this place that Herod built on top of this cliff. And it's an imposing thing, even with just the ruins, but it sits totally isolated on this cliff. The story is very powerful, but in a nutshell, for three years, approximately two to three hundred warriors of the nine hundred to a thousand total people held off a contingent of somewhere between ten and twenty-five thousand Roman soldiers for three years, unthinkable. They just could not broach the fortifications, they couldn't get up there. This little thing you see at t