13. Well, Josh would you mind
grabbing the maps? And we'll get into that soon or
brother, Kevin, Maybe. I'll help you get it.
Set up. If we don't put in the right
place, it's slides and don't need that to happen.
Let me get, let me get this set up and then we'll get started
into this tonight. I do limbo through the door.
Very good. Yeah.
Yeah, right. Here is perfect.
Yeah. Yeah, right there.
Gotcha. Yep.
That's perfect. Thank you.
All right. Turn it a little bit so I can
see it though. Is that in front of the screen
that's going to keep you guys from being able?
See I'm gonna move this over there.
See if we can take the piano out this me times that better.
All right. I need to turn it a little bit
more so that I can see it over there.
I can't really see it either. Very good.
Good, we're on. All right.
Let me see here, make sure. Okay, Judean Wilderness, that's
where we're going to. We're going to talk about the
part of the Judean Wilderness. Anybody know what happened in
the Judean Wilderness? Give me a couple things that you
can remember. Maybe about what happened in the
Judean Wilderness, but Ryan. King Saul, yep. and getting Yep,
exactly. Right.
That's one of the things that happened in the Judean
Wilderness. What else?
There's a lot. There's a lot.
Some that we've already talked about brother.
Kevin. Jesus was tempted in the
wilderness for 40 days in the Judean Wilderness, right?
That's a nice one. Anything else that you can think
of we're going to look at them. So hopefully by the end of
tonight you'll know all of them. But yeah.
Jacob would have been not in the Judean Wilderness.
He was, he would have been more in the, in, the southern, the
Negev Wilderness. But Wilderness, your clothes.
All right, let's get into it then.
Okay. So did you did Wilderness and
I'm going to zoom in on this map just a little bit.
All right. Did you did Wilderness runs from
the north of Jericho to the southern end of the Dead Sea?
Okay, here we are. Here's Jericho right up in this
area here and it oh there's Jericho.
Its tiny little dot on there. You can come look at it later if
you want to but it runs all the way.
Here. And if you if you were able to
come in closer, let me see if this gives.
It doesn't really give it to you.
You can see it on this map if you come a little bit closer,
but you can kind of see, all right?
Look in this area right here and see how it Stan right in there.
Now, almost all of this is to, this is Desert is Sharia course,
all of this is Desert area. What is this area called that
little triangle section? The - right?
What does - mean itself? South means South.
Right? What is this right here?
The Red Sea. What is this Mediterranean Sea?
What is this Sea of Galilee? What runs from the Sea of
Galilee all the way down to this, the Jordan River and what
is this? The Dead Sea?
Very good. All right, what is this area of
the Wilderness called Wilderness of Zin?
All right. What's the one below that in
this area Wilderness of Paran? All right, so we're going to add
one more thing to it. All right, let's just Judean
Wilderness and the Judean Wilderness runs basically from
Didn't this area all the way up to the top corner right by
Jericho. All right, and that red area
right there in lies on the western side of the lower Jordan
Valley and the Dead Sea area. So you would think actually,
that it would be fairly well watered, because of the the fact
that it's it's so low a lot of it's It's so low compared to the
rest of rest of Israel, but it really is very dry and very
barren. Not much there.
It's about 60 miles. Long about 13 miles wide and so
gives you kind of an idea here. Does anybody remember?
Okay, so this is basically, this is the southern tip of Israel.
This is the, I'm sorry, the northern tip of Israel.
This is the southern tip of Israel.
Does anybody remember what I said?
It's a, the, the whole nation of Israel is about the size of in
the United States, Alex Massachusetts?
So, it's really, it's, I mean, on the actual map of the United
States is very, very, very tiny, even on the map of that whole
Malaria. It's very, very tiny.
I can pull this away and let you look at it again, real quick.
Just to remind you of how small it actually is even in that even
in that whole region, right? But it is very, very small
compared to their ghosts. Don't go anywhere on me.
All right. So so, so you have Jordan Saudi
Arabia Egypt. I mean, Egypt is massive.
Just all down in this area. Syria, turkey.
And here's a little Israel right here.
That's it. That's all of Israel.
So, it's very, very, very small compared to Basically, any other
Nation. I mean, we have how many states
in the United States that are actually bigger than the nation
of Israel, quite a few. Right?
And so, very, very small but obviously, God blessed it and
many, many things that have happened there.
I think we're good. I hopefully that's the case.
But 60 miles, long 13, miles wide 60 miles from here.
I mean, it doesn't even get you to Williamsburg probably right?
Maybe maybe just about to Williamsburg, so you're not
talking very long at all. But it's a it's a pretty pretty
big area. So there you go.
The Jordan River Jericho qumran. What do you remember about
qumran? The dead sea caves, right?
That's where they. That's where the really found
the Dead Sea Scrolls, you have Dead Sea of and Getti of Masada.
All of those are things that we talked about already.
All of those are in the Judean Wilderness.
All right there along that that eastern coast of the Dead Sea.
So we're going to get into a few of those, all right even though
the Judean desert is dry and Barren it was it was settled
long before recorded history began.
Now when I say recorded history we have a lot of a lot of
obviously we go all the way back to Creation in the Bible, right?
So Nobody was there. When creation happened, Adam and
Eve didn't write down a diary of what was going on in the Garden
of Eden, right? They weren't recording history.
God gave that to to I was going to say Abraham but Moses when he
wrote the first five books of the Bible, right?
Moses. Wasn't there when Adam and Eve
lived. So obviously, he got it from
somewhere, right? God gave that to him, God gave
him all those things to be able to write down, but it was not
recorded history. Okay?
So, this area has been settled for a long, long time.
Now, as we, as we kind of go through some of these pictures,
think about Think about these place because I'm really only
going to give you one picture when we get to this idea, but
that's where Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness for 40
days and 40 nights. You know, he went into the
Judean Wilderness, that's where he went.
I mean look how dry and Barren. I mean the reason why he fast it
is really there was nothing to eat.
It's not like he can just get up, go pick a fruit off the
tree, eat it while he was out there praying or something like
that. It's just, there was nothing
there for him to eat because of how dry and Barren it is.
So, but it's been there for a long time.
Now, Jericho, we're going to talk about Go next week, but
Jericho dates to possibly 3500 BC, it's the oldest city in the
Judean desert, the oldest continually inhabited city in
the world. If you see that right there,
which I'm I can't see that. But Jericho is says Jericho the
oldest city of the world. That's the Elijah spring
Fountain. That's right.
There in the city of Jericho, it's a tourist trap is really,
what it is. That's where you go to, go to
Jericho, you can go through the town and stuff to which I'll
show you a bunch of that tomorrow.
But I say Possibly 3500 BC because that that really is, you
know, Real History. The according to what we find in
the Bible in according to what we have by those who have Usher,
is one of them who put together a lot of dates, he figured based
on all the things that we have in the Bible that that the world
was created in 4004 BC, which puts the world at between six
and seven thousand years old. Not millions of years like like
Evolution tries to claim so to say that it dates possibly to
3500 BC. I mean that's about the oldest
recorded, human history that we have other than maybe obviously
Mesopotamia and Adam and Eve and all that stuff.
But obviously they were kicked out of the garden.
They were moved and so they was not continually inhabited, but
they claimed to be the oldest city in the world.
Whether they are or not, whether they're the continued know, the
oldest continuously inhabited city in the world?
Who knows? We know what happened at Jericho
though, right? What happened to Jericho?
The walls fell down, right? And we're going to look at some
evidence that they have found that that very that point, very
much to the fact that the walls fell down.
And, and the evidence is still there today, but even when they
took Jericho, they still went in and have it at the city, right?
So Jericho is the oldest inhabited continually inhabited
city in the world and Getti. And I'm just this is kind of a
little bit of a review for us because we've already talked
about a lot of these. But in Getty is in the Judean
Wilderness, another notable place that dates.
To about the same time as Jericho obviously, there's not a
lot of people, not a lot of civilization in and Getti, but
people have lived there because it is, it's a spring, it's a
place to go get water. It's a place where you can get
fresh water in the desert. So people have have inhabited
and Getti for quite some time. Sodom and Gomorrah date back to
that ancient time as well. Sodom and Gomorrah is in the
Judean Wilderness. Its kind of read the very tip of
it but that's where Sodom and Gomorrah is that is known as
Mount Sodom right there. A lot of that is salt Dates back
to that time. Now, here's something that's
pretty interesting, that I want to point out to you.
In Genesis, chapter 13, and verse number 10.
Now, when Abraham and lot, we're getting ready to separate,
Abraham gave lot the option where he wanted to go, right?
And this is where we find verse number 10.
Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan
that it was well, watered everywhere.
Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden
of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as thou comest unto his or
so. Here, lot is looking at Sodom
and Gomorrah, that's where he went, right?
He's looking at Sodom and Gomorrah and saying wow, look
how well watered that plane is so it seems pretty.
It's pretty evident that that God changed the climate of the
Judean Wilderness after he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and
and you know the surrounding cities around there.
The Bible says that used to be like a well-watered garden.
Arden. So we don't have any pictures of
what it used to look like, right.
But we do know this fact, turn over to Ezekiel.
We've looked at these Passages at this passage before, but I
think it's worth looking at it again.
Ezekiel chapter 47, Ezekiel chapter 47.
And look at verse number 6, Ezekiel 47, and verse number 6.
And he said unto me, son of man hast, thou seen this.
And he brought me and cause me to return to the brink of the
river. Now, when I had returned behold
at the bank of the river, were very many trees on the one side
and down the other then said he unto me these Waters issue out
toward the East Country and go down into the desert and go into
the sea, which being brought forth into the sea, the waters
shall be healed and it shall come to pass that.
Everything that liveth Each moveth.
Whithersoever, the river shall come shall live.
There shall be a very great multitude of fish because these
water shall come through there for, they shall be healed.
And everything shall live whether the river cometh, that
shall come to pass that, the rich that the Fisher's shall
stand upon it, from in Getty, even unto n a, and a Glam, they
shall be a place to spread forth.
Nets, their fish shall be according to their kind as the
fish of the great sea exceeding, many.
So we know this that God is going to cause the Judean
Wilderness to flourish again in the Millennial reign of Jesus
Christ. Everywhere that that river goes,
the Bible says there's going to be life.
Not just the waters are going to be healed.
The Bible says, the Waters of the Dead Sea are going to be
healed, and they'll be just as many fish in the Dead Sea as
there are in the Red Sea, or the Mediterranean Sea.
Sorry, the great sea. The Bible calls the
Mediterranean Sea. The great see many times.
And so, there's going to be the same number of fish in the Dead
Sea in the millennial Kingdom. God's going to heal those
Waters, and everywhere. The river runs, it's going down
into those Waters. There's going to be life again
and even Mentions and Getty in there, and obviously right there
in and get you have a little bit of life, but all the way around
and sort completely surrounding all of that is just dead.
It's Barren because it's Wilderness.
So very interesting. Now here's something that's
interesting as well and we've already mentioned this.
I pointed it out even just a little bit ago, but the qumran
caves. How did those how did those come
about? What we're actually talking
about. The debt of the Dead Sea Scrolls
in the teens Sunday school class, but the S scenes lived in
the Judean Wilderness from about 200, BC to around 68 ad.
What do you know that happened around 68 ad?
It wasn't exactly in 68 but it was right near there.
I'll give you a hint. It was in 70.
Yes the second temple. Herod's temple was destroyed in
70 AD. So the S scenes lived in the
Judean Wilderness from about 200 BC to about 68 ad.
There were spiritually devoted group, who left Jerusalem,
because of the fact that they thought that the priesthood have
become corrupt. So they devoted themselves to
basically making sure that priesthood stayed uncorrupted if
you will, but then they also devoted themselves to making
copies of Of the Bible. They didn't have the ability to
just go to a printing press and hit copy and make copies of the
Bible, they had to, they had to painstakingly copy every single
word in every single letter. And by the way, if they found a
single mistake in any of those things, they destroyed the
entire script. So if you knew that you were
going to get to the end of the entire book of Isaiah and you
made a mistake, you had to start all over, guess what you're
going to do? You're going to Make sure that
you do not make any mistakes, right?
So that's what they did and in those caves then.
So here's what happened, they devoted themselves to copying
and translating the Bible. When they saw the nation of
Israel, falling to the Romans. In 68 ad, they hit all of those
things in clay pots and went up into the mountains into those
caves. Now they had, they had lived in
the Judean Wilderness that they were familiar with where
everything was that they knew pretty good hiding places.
Obviously it stayed hidden for close to two thousand years,
right? They hid it in 11 different,
Caves. Now some of them were found so
they might have actually hit them in more of those caves.
Some of them were found, some of them were destroyed by the
Romans, but there was many that we're not and that's what they
were discovered in the 1950s and the 1960s.
And that's where they found. All of those, what's known as
the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was there was there was parts of
every single book in the Old Testament except for I believe
Esther which really just proves that even all the way back.
Then what we have as the Canon of our scripture was the Canon
of scripture about. And two, it was the same books
of the Bible that we consider to be the books of the Bible today.
But one and one was very, very interesting or very important, I
should say was the Isaiah scroll.
They found a copy of the book of Isaiah and all 66 chapters were
there and you can find that still today.
These so these translated manuscripts are called the Dead
Sea Scrolls, 11 caves to, in 1947 and 1956.
And these pieces of the scroll scrolls are actually Here's an
amazing thing, as well. God gave the Jews, the, the job,
and the responsibility of protecting and preserving his
word, right? And all these years later, 2000
years later, the Jews in the Israel Museum in the Shrine of
the book, as it's called, it's a little, it's part of the Israel
Museum, it's in a separate building, but here they are
having copies of the preserved word of God and they have the
entire Isaiah scroll there as well, which I showed you
pictures of that before. Or that all the way around, that
big gets a copy that they have there.
They have the original. What they have on display is a
copy but John the Baptist spent a lot of his time in the Judean
Wilderness. In fact, I want to look at a lot
of different passages with that. So let's go to Isaiah chapter
40. John the Baptist he was
prophesied as the Forerunner of Jesus Christ.
Now, here's another interesting, again, I mentioned this to the
young people this morning, so they're getting it twice, but
this is, this is just, this is an interesting thing as well.
You read through the book of Isaiah and I would say that
Isaiah probably more than any other book in the Old Testament
prophesied about the coming Messiah, right?
Especially when you read Isaiah 53 and all of those things that
we find out about Christ in Isaiah 53, but all of that was
there. R and all of that dates back to
several hundred years before Christ.
Right? So it's not like Jesus Christ
came along. And somebody thought, oh, it
would be cool to write this as if Jesus Christ was going to
come and all of this was fulfilled, right?
And what that's not what happened, all of these things
were pre-written and that that the that what they found in
those caves there in qumran, in the Judean Wilderness, proves
that all of that was pre written, Before Jesus Christ
came so everything that was prophesied about him.
He fulfilled, right? And we find a prophecy in Isaiah
40 of John the Baptist. So Isaiah chapter 40 and verse
number 3, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness
prepare, ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert, a
highway for our god. Well, let's look in a couple
different passages. I want to look at Matthew, Mark
and Luke so turn to Matthew chapter 3.
Matthew chapter 3. John the Baptist and here's part
of the Judean Wilderness as well.
John, the Baptist preached repentance in the wilderness of
Judea, Matthew chapter 3. This is, these are, this is all,
if you think about it this way, it's all fulfillment of
Prophecy. And not only that, but it was a
direct quotation in a lot of cases of the Fulfillment of that
prophecy. Now, you got to think that
Matthew Mark, Luke John Paul Peter, all of them knew the Old
Testament, very well that was their Bible, that was what they
would have studied, especially Paul being a Pharisee.
Everything else. I mean, by the time, they were
12 years old, the young Jewish boys had to memorize the first
five books of the Bible and to know the first, they had to
memorize the law. They had to know all of it, and
they did do that, so they would have known it very well.
So when they're writing these things down and talking about
hey this is this. This man is exactly the same
person that was prophesied about in Isaiah.
Of course, they're going to use the exact same phrases.
They knew him, right? But Matthew chapter 3 and verse
number 1 in those days, Days. Came John, the Baptist preaching
in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent.
Ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
For this? Is he that was spoken of by the
prophet who You say a saying the voice of one crying in the
wilderness prepare? Ye the way of the Lord make his
paths straight, is that sound pretty familiar?
It's exactly what was what was prophesied in Isaiah right now.
How is it? Well, it's Isaiah in the Old
Testament. Isaiah says, in the New
Testament, it's the translation. One of them was, it was coming
from Hebrew. The other one was coming from
Greek. That's the difference.
Turn over to Mark, chapter 1. Mark chapter 1, you see that in
a few other places, Joseph and Joseph, Elijah, or Elijah and
Elias, right? You see that?
It's just the difference in the translation, ones, being
translated from Hebrew. The other ones, being translated
from Greek, same person, and it's not a mistake at all.
Mark chapter 1 and verse number 4, John did baptize in the
wilderness and preached. The baptism of repentance for
the remission of sins, turn over to Luke Chapter 7.
Luke chapter 7 and I have those up there by the way, if you want
to write those down and look at them later, I know a lot of you
are kind of taking notes on this, so you can, you can do
that. But Luke chapter, 7, and verse
number 24. And when the messengers of John
were departed, he began to speak unto the people concerning John.
What went ye out into the Wilderness for to see a reed
shaken with the wind but what went ye out for to see a man
clothed in soft, raiment, behold, they which are
gorgeously appareled and live delicately are in King's courts.
But When she got for the see a profit.
Yes. Into you much more than a
Prophet. This is he of whom it is
written. Behold, I send my messenger
before thy face which shall prepare thy way, before thee
for, I say unto you among those that are born of women, there is
not a greater Prophet than John the Baptist.
But he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than
he. And all the people that hurt him
and the publicans Justified God being baptized with the baptism
of John. Now, that's very interesting in
this Passage and maybe you have it in there.
What color are those words are in red, right?
Which means there they are spoken by.
Who Jesus Christ? I mean, talk about High.
Praise number one. Jesus is saying this is the
exact same person that was prophesied about an Isaiah.
But number two there is none gray.
I mean that's that's High Praise obviously coming from Jesus
Christ but that's where John the Baptist was and he preached that
repentance in the wilderness of Judea.
Now John the Baptist baptized in the Jordan River.
Let's look at a few more here. Matthew chapter 3.
Don't over to Matthew chapter 3. And we have a couple, will stay
in the same passage just to make it a little bit easier for us.
But John the Baptist baptized in the Jordan River.
That's a little section of the Jordan River.
We didn't we didn't actually go there.
This is, not my picture but it still gives you a pretty good
idea of what the Jordan River looks like the Jordan River.
Is not a clean River at all. It's in fact, it's a very dirty
River. You really can't see down into
it much at all. But Matthew chapter 3 and verse
number Five says, then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea
and all the region round about Jordan and were baptized of him
in Jordan, confessing their sins.
Now, think about this. Okay?
The Judean Wilderness is all right in this area.
The Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea right here.
So all of that area, the Judean Wilderness were John.
The Baptist would have been, that's why they were coming to
him and the closest thing that they could be baptized in was
the Jordan River. So that's why they went there.
It was, it was right there. In fact, Jesus Christ.
Self was even baptized in the Jordan River in the same
passage, just a few verses later in verse 13.
Then come with Jesus From Galilee to Jordan unto John Now,
where's Galilee the galileans up here, right?
Jesus comes all the way down to where John was at there in the
wilderness. He comes down from Galilee to
Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.
But John forbad him saying I have need to be baptized of
thee. And that income without to me,
Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to Be so now, for
thus, it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness, then he
suffered him Jesus, when he was baptized went up, straightway
out of the water and lo, the heavens were opened unto him and
he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and
lighting upon him and lo a voice from Heaven saying this is my
beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased how interesting that we
have, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all right there
in that same passage and we talked about, you know, we
baptized and he told us to baptize in the name of the
father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, right?
But all three of them were present there at the baptism of
Jesus. Obviously, Jesus was the son.
Holy Spirit, descended on him in the form of a dove.
And God the father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am.
Well pleased. So you have all three of those
things there at the time that Jesus was baptized.
But then after Jesus was baptized he immediately was led
into the Wilderness to be tested.
In fact, let's go. Look at that real quick.
I'm not going to read the whole passage but Luke chapter 4 and
verse number 1 gives us a pretty good idea of exactly what's
happening there. Luke chapter 4, and verse number
one, and Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan
and was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness.
Verse number two, being forty days, tempted of the devil.
And in those days, he did eat nothing when they were ended, he
afterward hungered. And then, of course, that's when
the devil came to him and tempted him, a turn these stones
into bread. Hey, jump off the Pinnacle of
the temple and let the Angels catch you.
Hey, I'll give you everything. If you bow down to me, right?
And Jesus answered with scripture every single time and
it's a great Story. The point is not the story
tonight. It's the point is to show you.
This is where Jesus would have been at when he was let out into
was not, not not necessarily this particular place but I
will, I will show you next week in Jericho, you can see.
And we actually went up there on a cable car to the Mount of
Temptation. The place where Jesus supposedly
was tempted by the devil. When he showed him all of this
stuff and said it can all be yours and you know I always used
to think how can the devil offer him.
These things they belong to him. Anyway, he's God right.
But but the devil is the prince of the power of the air.
The devil has free reign on this earth.
Right? And essentially, what he's
saying is, I'll turn all that over to you.
If you kneel down before me, he always wanted to be worshipped.
Like, God, didn't he the devil? Satan did, and that's why he
fell from heaven. He wanted to be, he wanted to be
up there with God and ahead, Jesus, knelt down and bowed to
the devil. Number one, he's a liar, he
probably wouldn't have given it to him anyway.
But number two, he would have given to the Devil?
What only belong to God. And so it was the devil's to
give away. Essentially he's got, he's got
free reign on this earth right now.
And he wasn't saying, you know, I own all this stuff, I'll give
it to you. He was saying basically, hey the
devil has the power right now to have free reign on this Earth.
And he's the prince of the power of the air and all of these
other things. And he was offering to give that
to Jesus. If you would just kneel down, of
course, Jesus answered with scripture and said it is
written, right? And that's how we ought to
answer every time as well. So let me show you this is part
of the Judean Wilderness as well.
This is known as Wadi celt and monasticism spread throughout
that area in the centuries after the apostles.
And it was, it was the beginning of apostasy and really a lot of
those false religions came around after that, right?
You have a lot of people that say, well, why can't we just get
back to being all one? Religion, look how it was for
the apostles. They didn't have Baptists and
methodists and Presbyterians and all of these other things.
Well, no, they didn't, because It was not, I mean a lot of that
apostasy hadn't grown up yet. Right?
There was nothing, you know, it was Jesus Christ and and he was,
he was the truth. He was giving the truth.
So they lived as close to the truth as they possibly could
when Jesus was on this earth, right?
So, yes, it would be a wonderful thing for all Christians to get
along. But apostasy comes in and you
have to separate from that. That's why the Bible is filled
with verses that tell us to stand for the truth.
Stand for the word of God, avoid the false teachers, avoid these
things. Why is that?
Because they creep in In. They weren't necessarily mean,
there was people there that that opposed Jesus and everything
else, but he was Christianity. He was Christ, right?
So there would have only been one Christianity when Jesus was
here, but as soon as he left, People started allowing these
false doctrines and everything else to creep in.
So monasticism spread throughout the area in the centuries, after
the apostles St. George's Monastery was built by
monks in the 5th Century. And so, obviously, 5th Century
ad at a place where they thought.
Elijah was fed by Ravens. Now, obviously, Elijah was fed
by Ravens somewhere, very likely, this was not the place,
but that's why they end up building that Monastery.
There, it's about two and a half miles.
West of Jericho. It's a, it's breathtaking.
I mean, how big this Gorge is, and it's called.
Wadi celt. A Wadi is a place where water
does not always run. It's a river but it's mostly
dry. So why'd he killed is the name
of this place and, and you'll see a lot of different Wadi.
Whatever is in Israel. You see them all over the place.
Israel has really one really big rainy season and during that
rainy, season is when most of those rivers run.
But during most of the rest of the year, there's nothing in
them now there. A little bit of water.
And this, you can kind of see it at the bottom there, but I need
to get, I need to get moving, and we're going to get way
behind here. We're already kind of behind,
but you can see this. So, this, this is an area, this
is part of the Judean Wilderness.
It would have been like right near the top here.
Of course, the Judean Wilderness.
I told you runs all the way down to the bottom of the Dead Sea.
This area was, was pretty much right in here Jericho.
All right, let me maybe it'd be easier for me to point this out
because it's pretty small. Here's Jerusalem.
Here is Jericho and so, where we Were at was in between Jerusalem
and Jericho right here. So all of this is still part of
the Judean desert and if you look if you come up here and
look at it afterwards, you can see it but beautiful, beautiful
area but Jesus would have come through here quite a few times.
The Bible talks about him traveling from Jericho to
Jerusalem or you know in that Judean Wilderness Area.
So you can kind of get a picture.
There is located on the ancient Road, connecting, the Jordan
Valley to Jerusalem and Beyond Jesus would have used this
well-traveled world regularly. Talking.
I mean you saw you see the pictures of how rugged all of
that stuff is, right? There's not too many ways
through that. So the, the one way that
everybody would have taken Jesus would have taken if he was going
through that area, which you did many times.
So there's the old Jericho Jerusalem Road with the Mount of
Olives that's visible in the distance.
This is not exactly where we were at, but this is kind of
this kind of give you a good picture of what it would have
looked like there. That's the remnants of the old
Roman Road because there was an Old Road there.
The Romans came came by and built another road that was
better, and it, and as still There today as well.
But you can you can still kind of see this.
That's the Jericho Road in the 1800's, just obviously a drawn
picture of it to kind of show you what it looks like.
But there's not a lot of roads to the Judean Wilderness.
So if you wanted to go from Jericho to Jerusalem, that's the
road. You would have had to take and a
lot of other stops on the way in between as well.
Talk about him, Harrods Aqueduct is visible as you descend down
into that Wadi Herod was was known as the master builder
haired builds Herod built so many things.
It's and and not just built them, but built them very, very
well, but I'll show you kind of that.
Same Wadi that, I mean, the same Aqueduct that you're looking at
right there is very, very tiny when you see when you back up.
And I mean, it's hard for you to get a picture of just how big
this place is. But I'll try to give you a
little bit of it there. So this is kind of some more of
that. There's there's the aqueduct
there. I would, I would say that that
Aqueduct is about the same width as maybe a sidewalk, it's not
huge, but it's definitely not some tiny little, you know,
stream of water. There you go, that's that.
Give you a kind of good idea of what it looks like.
How close is effect? This is a video.
I think there we go. There's people walking down
there. You can't even see him.
There's the people are so tiny up there next to where that,
monasteries at that. You can't even see them.
Maybe you can, I don't know. You can kind of see him up in
that top corner. I'll point, I'll point the
people out to you in just a little bit.
But you see how the water is not really flowing down there, just
kind of huddled up. They we had they just kind of
come through the rainy season when we went But there it is.
There's the monastery. I'm going to.
I'm going to show you some close up pictures of some of this, but
I kind of give you a little bit of a video, overview of the
whole thing. There you go.
So, st. George's Monastery is at Greek
Orthodox, cliff-hanging complex, that's carved.
Just right into the sheer rock wall.
So it's a, it really is an amazing feat of engineering.
If you will, especially when you consider that was built in the
5th Century ad and and and built in the literally in the middle
of nowhere, the fact that they brought all the stuff, That they
needed their for building and you know, just carved it all
into the side of the rock. I mean, now when you think about
it, they had plenty of time. Starting in the fourth Century.
They began to live in a lot of the caves around there and Wadi
celt and I'll put some arrows and this will kind of give you a
picture. All right, down here is people,
you see the people here. So it gives you just an idea of
just how massive this is, but all the way throughout that
whole area and this hike, I don't know, it took us probably
what three or four hours to go from where Are we started at the
monastery into Jericho and all the way along the whole route,
you saw caves everywhere. So what happened was and I'll
show you some more pictures as we go through there.
But you can see, I mean, this one I should have zoomed in on a
little bit more. That's actually like it's kind
of built right into the side with a nice little archway
entrance and everything else. So what these what these there
you go. There's there's maybe a little
bit better one. But what these monks did was
they had the idea and this is what monasticism is all about
these monks had I did that the more you beat yourself up, the
more you are hard on yourself though, the the more difficult
you made your life, the more you were paying for your sins,
essentially. So they tried to make their
lives as hard as they could possibly make them.
So they put their houses up in these Hills and in these caves.
So it was it was, it was just a very, very difficult strenuous
hike to get there. And if you wanted to carry any
kind of food or water, or anything of it was very Very
hard to do that. And then they would just sit
there in complete silence for days and days and days on end
and meditate and do all these other things, as a way to try to
earn God's favor and to pay for their sins, obviously, we know
that none of that matters, it's Jesus Christ and him alone, and
that's it. And so, all the stuff he think
about all the things that they did that that were just, I mean,
commendable humanly speaking for how difficult their life was,
and how they made it through these, Things but worthless in
the end because it counted for nothing, right?
And how many of these guys at the end of all of that died and
went to hell because they didn't get their sins forgiven, by
Jesus Christ. They were trying to do what they
could to forgive them themselves essentially and earn God's
favor. So even there you can see and
this one's hard to see, I should have zoomed in on that as well.
See, this one right here has actually got wood and doors and
things on it as well. It's very, very difficult to
see. Maybe I'll try to go back to it
later. I think I might actually have a
little bit closer zoom in of it but what does that say?
So a lot of them lived alone in caves.
They met from Mass for mass and a communal meal every so often
basically weekly they did it and eventually there were so many of
them out there in these caves that they decided hey let's
let's let's build a monastery. So that's what they did.
So it was founded in the 5th Century by John of Thebes.
He's an Egyptian, got a small band of five Syrian Hermits but
settled around the cave where they believe the Prophet.
Elijah was fed by the Ravens and that story is in 1st Kings 17, 1
through 7. I'm not going to take the time
to go there tonight but tradition also holds it that
Elijah visited the cave by the monastery while he was traveling
to the Sinai Peninsula. When he was fleeing from Jezebel
after he had that confrontation with all the prophets of Baal
and in fact, First Kings 19. One through three I wrote it
down, just to save some time. Hey, have told Jezebel all that.
Elijah had done it with all how he had slain, all the prophets
with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger
unto Elijah saying, so let the god do to me and more.
Also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by
tomorrow, about this time, when he saw that, he arose and went
for his life and came to Beersheba which belongs to Judah
and left his servant there. So the story about him being fed
by the Ravens in that spot is very unlikely based on
everything that That those that have researched it out have come
up with the story of him going to this place when he was
fleeing from Jezebel is very likely according to all of those
who know that, I didn't study that myself.
I don't know. But because I wasn't there
either, but the arrow then I'm pointing to is actually where
the monastery is. So all the way up, on the top of
this hill is kind of where you, where we came in and you wind
your way down to the bottom. And then you get over there to
the right of the monastery is and then you start on this path.
That's heading towards you. Rico, which I'll show you in a
little bit but there's a few pictures of this just to try to
give you an idea of how big this place is, and really how massive
it is. It go back.
Look at that. In that beautiful though.
Just beautiful beautiful place, that's the Judean wilderness.
So once we came down, got to that spot went to the mind.
We didn't actually go into the monastery.
We just walked past it, but then you start walking on that path,
that goes toward Jericho. There's a, there's a pretty good
picture of it to give you an idea of just looking straight up
at it. How big it is hard.
It's really hard to comprehend. That arrow is actually pointing
to people. Hey, brother.
Josh, can you turn the volume on for this next video?
Just kind of give you an idea of what it sounds like with all the
people walking on there. Just how dusty it Rocky, it is.
Your volume. There we go.
See how big that is? Those are all loving people look
like ants that you see the path starts going that way.
And it was actually it was pretty dangerous and the time we
got to the end, the guide that was the Jewish guy that was with
us and brother Cloud was like if we had known what it was going
to be like we probably wouldn't have done it.
In fact we're not ever doing that again.
I was like well at least we got to do it.
But so they venerate the bones of dead Saints as holy relics,
and they think that it has that blessing power.
So the chief relic of Saint George's Monastery, is the Skull
and Bones of George's of gazebo which is st.
George all the way back. In the fifth century, they have
his skull which that's the top of his skull.
That round thing is the top of his skull and run underneath
that has his bones. They believe it has power to
bring blessing and everything else.
And again all completely man-made nowhere in the Bible.
Do we find that? So here's some pictures.
This is this is this is give you some pictures of what Wadi celt
looks like and very, very likely Jesus, would have seen exactly
the same view that you're looking at right here because
that was on the route from Jerusalem to Jericho, just just
beautiful beautiful scenery, though.
I'll give you a few pictures, alright, you may be able to see
this. You may not depends on how good
your eyes are, right in the dead center of that picture in the,
in the, in the little Notch of that V.
You see that all the way at the very top in the blue sky,
there's the tiny little pin. Needle type thing.
It was a massive structure that was kind of the archway that you
went into to get down to all of that stuff.
I mean, it was big and it's just a tiny tiny little dot there.
Just to give you some perspective, there you go,
beautiful. And as you go through it mean,
maybe you can kind of keep an eye out for it, but as you go
through them and you see little caves dotted everywhere.
Here's a cave right here, there's a couple caves right
over there cave all the way in that far Corner.
Here's a cave, the head, some that were down here.
And as we're walking, I was like no wonder these guys pick this
place for caves. I mean, if you're going to sit
in a cave by yourself for hours and days on end, that's a great
place to do it. It just beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful scenery there. Look in there, you see some
more, I don't know exactly which ones are just natural caves and
which ones are ones that they dug out and we're using as a
place for their, you know, meditation.
But Beautiful area. A lot of caves up in that area.
See him all kind of doubted all the way through out there.
There's there's that's that's the tail end of our group
walking down there. You see him?
I just got to show you how big this whole thing is.
I have a few places that are that are set out like that the a
lot of Christian groups make that trip and they use that as
kind of a place for preaching if you will.
I don't know exactly what they would use it for.
But so all the way and I didn't I didn't put a lot of them in
there but she that cross that's on the top of that little pillar
right there. Those are dotted.
Kind of all the way throughout that whole area and that is made
for people who suppose they're doing pilgrimages to Jerusalem
because the the trip and I'll mention this, let's just move on
but the trip from Jericho to Jerusalem was only about 20
miles, but the terrain is so rugged.
We took, it took at least a day if not more to get from Jericho
to Jerusalem, which, okay, here you go, perfect example, right
there. All right, there's Jerusalem.
You see, that's the Mount of Olives.
You see, Bethenny and then you can see how it just goes all the
way, down the Jericho Road to Jerusalem, 20 winding miles, and
the reason why Jericho I'm like, why do you, why would they want
to go to Jericho? Well, part of, it was Jericho,
was a was a pretty Hub. But that was kind of the bottom.
So once you got the Jericho, you could kind of go to other places
from there and you see how it kind of it stops being Rocky and
you see the Jordan River Valley coming down.
It was a lot easier for them to go from Jerusalem down to
Jericho. And then up that Jordan River
Valley to go into any of these other places rather than trying
to hike through all of those, you know, mountains up and down
everything else. So they would take that road
down to Jericho and then make their way up.
So this this one might give you, okay.
There's Jericho Road in No one. That's an actual picture kind of
give you an idea of what that looks like.
So as they travel to Jerusalem, now this is this is going into
the Bible again. And I'm not going to read this
but Jesus and form the disciples about his death, the disciples
started to strive about who's the greatest in the kingdom of
God. That was all on that road from
Jericho to Jerusalem. And so actually this this is
pretty interesting here traveling from Jericho to
Jerusalem is always described as a sending up to Jerusalem and
I'm from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
Was always talked about going down to Jerusalem.
In fact, turn over to Luke chapter 10.
I'm not going to get there yet. Luke chapter 10 and verse 30.
We're going to read in just a minute, but it's actually very
interesting. And here's why.
In fact, I think I have a, there you go.
Look at this, there's Jerusalem, there's the Kidron Valley, the
Mount of Olives, they call that the shoulder you have the Roman
Road, a scent that the Crusader, for its the ascent of adumim.
And then Jericho Municipal Jericho residential, I mean,
look at the difference. So, when the Bible says, they
ascended up to Jerusalem, I mean, they were ascending up to
Jerusalem when they ascended down, or went down to Jericho,
they were going down to Jericho. And so the ascent from Jericho
to Jerusalem is 3425 feet, I mean, a mile is 5280, so you're
not talking a full mile, but that's two-thirds of a mile high
twice. I mean, so it's only 20 miles.
Jerusalem is 2600 feet above sea level.
Jericho is 800. 35 feet below sea level so it was a very very
strenuous rugged, hike walk, whatever you want to call it but
that gives you a great diagram of what the road looked like
from Jerusalem. All the way down to Jericho.
So that was a favorite, haunt of Roberts as Jesus described in
the parable of the Good Samaritan, right?
So there you are. Luke chapter 10 and let's look
at verse number 30. Jesus answering said a certain
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Make sense. When you read that now, right?
It wasn't just on a map Jericho Jerusalem is north and Jericho
is South. The he was going down to
Jerusalem are down to Jericho, sorry, and he fell among
Thieves, which stripped him of his raiment and wounded, him and
departed. Leaving him half dead by chance.
There came down a certain priest, that way.
And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Likewise a levite when he was at the place came and looked on him
and passed by on the other side, but a certain Samaritan.
As he journeyed came where he Was and when he saw him, he had
compassion on him and he went to him and bound up his wounds
pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own Beast, brought
him to an inn and took care of him and on the morrow, when he
departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host and
said, take care of him whatsoever.
Thou spendest more, when I come again, I'll repay thee.
Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighboring to
him that fell among the thieves. And he said, he that showed
Mercy on him. And then Jesus said unto him go
and do thou likewise. Now this is a couple things here
that I think are pretty interesting.
Number one, That was a road that was obviously a well-traveled,
right? Priest goes by levite, goes by
the Samaritan goes by, and he says, hey, if you need anything
else, when I come back, I'll give you more money, right?
So very, very real traveled Road and they knew it was rugged, you
couldn't just run away and run into a store or something like
that. So, it was a place that robbers
would always Come in. Now, this is so the end of the
Good Samaritan st.george's monasteries where we were at,
and we went from St, George's Monastery to Jericho.
So our little, the little, the little way that we took was kind
of the end of that route. The in of the Good Samaritan is
the traditional place and I say traditional because really any
site that was recognized in the Bible, the Catholics really came
in and built a church on it and So is it the actual place?
Some of them, maybe some of them.
Most of them probably are not but, you know, it was somewhere
close because a lot of these, a lot of the, a lot of these
Catholic churches in these Catholic Cathedrals and things
like that were built five, six seven, hundred years, after
these things happen. So there were a lot closer to
that time than we are, right? So especially even like well,
we'll get into this later. But the road runs through the
Judean Wilderness. That's the Jericho Road.
Jericho Jerusalem Road, as it leaves Jericho Herod, built the
Fortress called Cypress Cypress to guard the road.
I'm going to this Cypress on the top corner there.
I'm going to show you some pictures of that when we talk
about herod's Palace and Jericho next time.
But the old Jerusalem, Road means reticent, there's
different tribes. That's actually where the tribes
were split up. But there's the road into
Jericho and obviously there's a big white arrow pointing at
Jericho so you know where that's at.
But that would have been what they saw as they came in, and
you can kind of see how it how it opens up into a big
wide-open. Plain and as we traveled,
obviously Jericho kept getting bigger and bigger.
Now where that arrow is actually pointing.
Okay, you see you see the city of Jericho And the City of
Jericho is huge today, compared to, especially the way that it
was back in the in the time of the Bible.
But if you in fact I'll point this out to you on here.
Right here. Okay?
And right in this area here is where herod's Palace was.
I'm going to show you all the pictures of herod's Palace and
everything else later was just Summer Palace these Kings.
Obviously, we're very, very wealthy.
They had Winter Palace has that would stay warmer in the winter
and summer palaces. That would stay cool in the
summer. That's how they did it because
obviously they didn't have heating and air condition, so
they would do it that way. And so anyway, There's Jericho
that Ascent that, that red Ascent is actually all the way
up at the top. So, this, this kind of that big
arch that comes down. It's not that steep but that's
where that red Ascent was and you know, cars and things like
that. Actually can hit that road and
come that way. Way we took you'd never get a
car down there, there's Jericho, I think that's okay.
Let me go back here real quick. There's there's Jericho there.
This is the reticent that comes down.
This is the road that we were taking that that Jesus probably
would have at some point been on.
And that little that little hump if you will that I just pointed
out was right there and we'll show you that as we get into
next week. So on the way into Jericho,
Jesus would have seen herod's magnificent Palace city of
Jericho was given to her by the Roman Emperor Octavian in 30 BC.
Now, all you see now is basically the ground level and a
few things that were dug down below the ground, some of the
pools and things like that but I'll show you that so Whitey
celt right now. Big River.
If you will that runs down through the middle of that.
That's it right there. That's where it comes out and
Herod use that as a way for drawing sources of water and
everything else. So last one this is
reconstructed. Drawing their of herod's Palace
in Jericho. You can see and I'll show you
these again next week but you can see how small the city of
Jericho is compared to what it looks like today that entire
plane is nothing but houses and buildings and everything else
today. But that's modern Jericho not
not ancient Jericho The way that it was that but amazing amazing
place I believe. That's yeah.
So yeah, gives you a gives you a much better picture of what you
think of. When you think of Jesus going
into Wilderness, John the Baptist in the wilderness them
traveling from Jericho from Jerusalem to Jericho and a few
of those places in between so quick review.
All right, what is this? Mediterranean Sea, what's this?
Sea of Galilee, what's this? That's see.
Whats this red. See, what is this whole triangle
called? - what's the top half?
Wilderness of Zin the bottom half Wilderness supper, and what
is this called? Nope, the are of a valley, very
good. The art of a valley.
I didn't I didn't do that at the beginning.
What is the river that runs from Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea?
Jordan River and what's this area right here?
The Judean Wilderness. The Judean Wilderness, very
good. All right, let's pray and we'll
go ahead and stand, and when we get to the end, we'll sing Our
Song and be dismissed. Father, we love you.
Give me a thank you for the word of God.
I thank you for the way that it can come alive to us.
Got to thank you for the opportunity.
We have to be able to do this and pray that you just continue
to use it to help us understand the Bible, even more.
Thank you for all that you do for us in Jesus name.