A Virtual Tour of Israel - Part 1

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For those of you who may be visiting with us, I have to let you know that tonight is an unusual night, as is next Sunday night, because we're going to depart from our study. Normally, we go through the text of Scripture - a verse, or passage, or sometimes word at a time. But tonight and next Sunday night, I'm going to give you a little tour of Israel - not pictures of our visits so much as help you to understand a little bit more about the land, so that when you read your Bibles, the impact of the land itself will be there, because I think there's so much that we can learn from seeing the land as well as seeing the Scriptures describe it.

Where do you begin when you talk about Israel? Well, you have to begin with Abraham. You have to begin with Genesis 15. It was in Genesis 12, you remember, God first promised - made a covenant with Abraham. But it was in Genesis 15 that God told Abraham, for the first time, this land belongs to you and to your descendants forever. And God placed Abraham in that land.

The question that we have to start with, and very important question is, why? Why that land? You may have this picture that is an unrealistic one. Some of that's probably been changed even by the slides in the presentation you saw a few minutes ago. There are portions of the land of Israel, large portions, that you wouldn't want to have anything to do with. So, it's not that it is a particularly desirous place. So, why Israel? Why that plot of land?

Well, here you see the ancient world, essentially, a satellite photo of what would have been most of the inhabited world. In the Old Testament times as well as the New Testament times, you have three continents - Europe, Asia, and Africa. And you'll notice that those three continents are bounded by one little strip of land because, on the west is the Mediterranean (difficult in ancient times to travel), on the east is the Arabian desert (no one wanted to put themselves through that difficulty). And so, Israel, as it turns out and we'll see a little more specifically in a moment, is a tiny little land bridge that is at the junction of the ancient world. If you wanted to go from Europe to Africa, you went through that tiny little strip of land. If you wanted to go from Africa to Europe or Asia, you went through that tiny strip of land. If you wanted to go from Asia down into Africa, you pass through the land that God gave to Abraham. But why that land? Because it was so incredibly, strategically placed. When you look at another satellite image of it, you can see a little more of the desert down here. And you see the Mediterranean. You see just that little strip of green that runs along the coast of the Mediterranean. That's the land that belongs to Israel. It was the international highway of the ancient world.

Now, with that understanding, I want you to turn to Deuteronomy 4 as we begin our study tonight. We're, most of all, going to be looking at photos and I'm going to be explaining them to you. But I want to begin here because this sets the stage for everything else. Deuteronomy 4. Moses is talking to the new generation of Israel. All of those, 20 and older, have died. And now, God is preparing this new generation to go in and take the Promised Land. And Moses preaches them a series of sermons. And notice what He says in verse 5 of Deuteronomy 4: "See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it [keep those things. Verse 6] So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?'"

Do you see what Moses is telling the people of Israel? "You're going to go to a land where God is going to plant you, and in that land if you will abide by the charter, if you will, that God has given you as a nation, then you will set God on display. You and your own character will be set on display as a testimony to your God, God Himself will be set on display, and His Word will be set on display as well." You see, the nation of Israel, according to Exodus 19, was to be God's witness nation. They were to declare Him to the world. But they didn't have to go to the world, God put them so that the world passed right by them. The international highway ran through the coastal plain of Israel. And God set them there as a light to the nations.

Now, in terms of the size of Israel... By the way, there's Israel on the map. You can see that tiny little stretch of land that's easily traversed, and then you have the huge desert, and you have the Mediterranean on the other side. So, it just makes sense where God put them. Don't get in your mind that it's this wonderfully desirable piece of land from the standpoint of a great place to live. That isn't it at all. It was strategic in the mind of God to be a witness to the nations.

Now, when you think of Israel, there really isn't much to it. It's roughly the same square miles as the state of New Jersey. That's all there is, and yet, it is the center, literally, of the world in many ways. And it is still that as you pick up your newspaper day after day.

Now, the land of Israel is composed of, when you look at the topography, of five basic regions that run north and south. You have, first of all, the Jordan rift. That is an ancient rift, probably caused as a result of the flood, that runs all the way down from the north, all the way down into Africa. It is below sea level. The Sea of Galilee is 600 feet below sea level, the Jordan River continues to run down, and the Dead Sea is 1300 feet below sea level. The surface of the Dead Sea is 1300 feet below sea level. It is a huge rift. That's the first region.

The second region is the central hill country. You can see that there are mountainous areas here. It's about 3000 feet or so in elevation at its highest point through there. And that is where most of Israel lived during most of her history. You see that Jerusalem is in that blue circle, as is Nazareth in the north, and Samaria (most of Samaria) is in that hill country as well. That is where the people lived. It was a place that put them near the nations that passed through, you remember, Egypt and all the bigger empires are always fighting. They don't come into the hill country; they stay out on the coastal plain. But Israel is there to put God on display.

The third region is the Judean wilderness. You saw those stark pictures of nothingness for miles. Those hills that have no trees. That's the Judean wilderness. That's where our Lord was tempted. I've shown you that recently as we've been studying Mark.

The fourth area is the Shephalah - the foothills of the mountains and this is where many of Israel's battles were fought with the Philistines. The Philistines inhabited the fifth and final region, and that is, the coastal plain, over there where it's flat next to the Mediterranean. This is where most of Israel's population lives today. In fact, the blue circle, the central hill country, is primarily the West Bank today, and I'll show you that in just a moment.

So, that's kind of the zones of Israel. You'll notice that the blue circle, representing the central hill country, is broken at one place. Up near the top, there's a green flat area. That is the Jezreel Valley most commonly known to us as the place where Armageddon will occur. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes.

Now, briefly, let me skate you through time. At the time of Joshua, the many tribes divided the land and all the different segments. At the time of David and Solomon, the land of Israel was united; it was one, covering all of this area. In the time of the Divided Monarchy, you had Israel in the north, the northern 10 tribes, and you had Judah, the two southern tribes together in the South. So, again, this gives you - I'm just trying to give you some idea of how the land was divided at different times. In the time of Jesus, you had Judea in the south (the purple there), Samaria. And then you had the Galilee up near the Sea of Galilee and Decapolis on the other side. You'll notice that Galilee (this area up here near the Sea of Galilee) is surrounded by Gentiles. You had Syrophoenicia here and you had Gentiles on the entire eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. So, there was a heavy Gentile influence in the time of Christ.

This is what it looks like today. You can see that the Sea of Galilee the Golan Heights are up here. And Syria is right here as well. Now, not right on the Sea of Galilee, you have Jordan that runs up and down that Jordan Rift Valley to the east, and you have the Negev in the south. You'll notice, here's the Gaza Strip you hear about in the news. It's right down on the coast near Egypt. And this circle here, what is basically the foothills except for Jerusalem, which is right in here, is all the West Bank. The West Bank you hear them talking about, that's the area that they're describing.

Now, with that in mind, we began, as Charlie showed you, down in Tel Aviv which is near the ancient city of Joppa or Jaffa. And we went up to Caesarea. Caesarea is a very important city. This is an artist's rendering of what the first century city would have looked like. Out on the peninsula there, you can see Herod's palace. He built a magnificent palace for himself. There are tougher places to live than the Mediterranean. And you'll see the theater all the way on the right side and in the center is the Hippodrome. Those things have been excavated and you'll see pictures of them in a moment. This was the main port and administrative capital of the Romans in the time of Jesus. It was the seat of the Roman procurators. Herod's palace, here, became known as the Praetorium mentioned in Acts 23. You remember when Paul is brought to Caesarea and shows up there, it was the official residence of the Roman governor including Pilate. He went down to Jerusalem when he had to, to the fortress Antonia, but he spent his time in Caesarea.

This was a crucial place for early Christianity. Phillip the evangelist came here and set up his house in Caesarea, you remember? He's the one with the daughters who prophesied. Peter came to Caesarea under the direction of the Spirit. And the first Gentile convert was saved here in Caesarea. His name, of course, was Cornelius. Herod Agrippa in Acts 12 died here when he refused to give God glory. But Paul was held in prison here for two years, you remember, after he was arrested in Jerusalem and he appeared there in Caesarea probably in the palace that you see depicted here before Felix, before Festus, and before Agrippa. And then he was deported to Rome in this area.

Now, there are a few things that survived. Here's the theater in Caesarea, and it looks out over the Mediterranean. You can see groups meeting up there. It's actually huge. It seats somewhere between 3500 and 4000 people. Here's another picture of it, just to give you a little glimpse of this theater.

This is an important find. This is the only place they have found anywhere in all of Israel, the mention of the name of Pilate. It's on this stone, this inscription, that was found in excavations of the theater back in 1961. They used to scoff that there was anyone representing Rome named Pilate until they found this inscription. They've sort of put it back together and it reads something like this, "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, made and dedicated the Tiberium to the divine Augustus." And so, you have a reference to the one that interacts with Jesus so much in the gospels.

Here is all that remains of Herod's palace, that you saw pictured in that rendering - some of the columns and some of the other areas as they've excavated it. Also, to... You've seen these pictures. This was the famous aqueduct that runs up from the Carmel mountains down to supply water for this city of Caesarea - still one of the magnificent structures of the ancient world.

We left Caesarea and headed up to Megiddo. Megiddo is a very important place in biblical times. That's called the Tel Megiddo. A Tel is nothing more than where one city has been destroyed, it's been smoothed over, another city has been built on top of it. It's been smoothed over; another city has been built on top of it. As each city, successive city, was destroyed and rebuilt, they built on top and so it created its own sort of artificial hill. That's a tel. This is Tel Megiddo, looking at it. It was a very important city. Solomon built up this city. In fact, here is some of the excavations at Megiddo. This gives you a little bit of the view. It was a strategic place to have a city. This is a gate built by Solomon. You can see down there that it's got... This section would have been mirrored next to it. They destroyed it. It would have sat here. In the excavations... As they were excavating, they destroyed one side of it. But there would have been a passageway through here into, up into the city of Megiddo built by Solomon in Solomon's time.

Unfortunately, predating Solomon's time, this place was also used by the Canaanites. What you see in the center there, if you'll notice and look very carefully, there's a human figure laid out on that round circle of stones. That was a Canaanite altar on which sacrifices were made to the gods of Canaan - to Baal and to the other gods of Canaan. This also was found at Megiddo.

In order to get water in, just as Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem, there was also a water system built there. You have to go down a serious flight of stairs. There's a tunnel that goes through the ground and comes to a spring. It allowed them that way to be under siege and to still have water in time of siege.

We left Megiddo to go to a more biblical significant place, and that is, Mount Carmel. Now, when you think of Mount Carmel, you usually think of like one mountain. But it's not. It's a range of mountains. You can see that little finger of mountains there where the red arrow is pointing. All of that is the Carmel range.

We're not sure exactly where on that range the confrontation with - of Elijah and the prophets of Baal occurred. But it did occur on that range, and we visited there. Mount Carmel means "orchard with fruit trees and vines". And it's an amazingly beautiful place with lots of trees, lots of oak trees, that are... You can't tell so much in this photo. You'll tell in the next one. And this is where the confrontation occurs. It was spoken of as a place of beauty, but it's also where Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal. This is the traditional site of the sacrifice, and it may very well be, because of the lay of the land and where it's located, where God sent down fire from heaven.

Here, you can see the Mediterranean from the Mount Carmel range. This is, remember, after the confrontation. Elijah prays that God would send rain and, back and forth, his servant goes until he sees, on the horizon, over the sea, a cloud the size of a man's hand. This is the view he would have had except with that tiny cloud on the horizon, promising that rain was coming. And then Elijah, you remember, runs before the chariot from here down into the town of Jezreel.

That brings us to the Jezreel Valley, also known as Armageddon. Now, I showed you before, but let me just show you a little more specifically. That's the Jezreel Valley - that greenish flat spot there, the break in the hill country. You can see that it sort of forms the point of an arrow and the little bit of a shaft. That's the Jezreel Valley or what we commonly refer to, as it's referred to in the Book of Revelation, Armageddon. It's about 25 miles on each side. It's incredibly fertile farmland. And the valley itself, the name Jezreel, means "God sows" or "God scatters". As you can see, it's one of their richest areas of farmland in various times of the year.

Nazareth is up over the hillside there. We're looking north. And next to it is Mount Tabor. And then, going - just scanning over to the right a little further, there's Mount Tabor again. And over to the side of it, is the Hill of Moreh and, eventually, Mount Gilboa. The Hill of Moreh figures in biblical history. In fact, it's around the Hill of Moreh that Saul went to meet with the Witch of Endor. And Mount Gilboa figures prominently in history as well.

Now, when you look at the base of that valley, there's a city: Tel Jezreel. This is where Saul gathered the Israelites against the Philistines. Then he went around, as I said, to the city of Endor. He fled to Gilboa where he died after losing the battle and his body was affixed, you remember, to the wall. That battle happened in this area. Ahab maintained a palace here. And you remember he took Naboth's vineyard in 1 Kings 21. That would have been nearby the palace here at Jezreel. Jehu who also rode furiously to Jezreel and killed Jehoram and Ahaziah. And so, this flat valley figures in Old Testament history, as well as in the history to come.

One part of that valley is Ein Harod. That is the spring - it's right there on the shaft of the arrowhead, you remember, from that image I put up a moment ago. And it's at the edge of Mount Gilboa. It's where Gideon narrowed the number of men that he had with him. There's an aerial view of Mount Gilboa and down beneath it, down in this area, is the spring. It's still there. Here's a little bit closer view. You can see the cave in the middle. That's the spring area, where the spring is. And here's yet a closer view. There's still a spring there today. It doesn't flow as great as it used to flow, but there is still water that comes out of it.

And this, you remember, is where God told Gideon to narrow the number of men. In fact, he narrowed his force to less than 1% of its original strength - less than 1% of its original strength. Why? We often hear the story taught, "Well, there were those who were more vigilant and there are those who weren't. If you didn't get all the way down and lap like a dog, if you stayed like this and you brought water to your mouth, you were more vigilant." You know, I really think that's missing the whole point of the story. The story is constructed to tell us that God intends to do this in such a way that He alone gets the credit. He narrows down this incredible fighting force to 300 men. And I personally think it was probably the 300 that were the least militarily capable, because God said, "I don't want anybody to say, 'Gideon got this victory' or 'the armies of Israel got this victory'. I want them to know that I achieved this victory." And so, God whittled it down to less than 1% of its original strength - Gideon and his 300. After he whittled that force down to 300, this is a view from the spring out across the valley, somewhere out in that valley, would have been the opposing army that was ultimately routed. And you know the familiar story.

We went from there to Nazareth. We're moving north as you can tell. We were here at the arrow point, at the Jezreel Valley. We're moving toward the north. Here's Nazareth in the hills on the north side. Nazareth was, in Jesus' day, much smaller than this. You can see the sheep grazing here in front of the town of Nazareth. Nazareth, in Jesus' day, would probably have been somewhere between 200 and 500 people - a small little village that isn't even mentioned in many of the ancient records. It was so insignificant, it's not even listed in the list that exists - the Talmud, the list that exists in the writings of Josephus of Galilee and towns - no mention of Nazareth. It really was a backwater town, and it was this town in which Jesus and His parents lived as He grew up. It was the boyhood home of Jesus. In fact, Jesus preached His first sermon here. Jesus, you remember, after His first sermon was expelled from the city. They even tried to kill Him, but He passed through and escaped. Jesus visited Nazareth at least once more in His lifetime, but He did no works here, we're told, no miracles because of the unbelief of the people. After that event of Jesus' first sermon and the response of the people, His rejection by the people of Nazareth, Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum. So, let's move on up the coast.

By the way, this is the Nazareth Church of the Annunciation. There are some sites in Israel that are almost certainly not the genuine site. They'll tell you that's where such and such happened. It didn't happen there. There are some sites that may be the genuine site. There are other sites that almost certainly are. And this one, because of the ancient tradition, probably is very much a genuine site.

Now, let's go on up the coast. From Nazareth, you can see, we're going a little bit more inland and over to the Sea of Galilee, to an area called the cliffs of Arbel. Arbel overlooks the Sea of Galilee. There, you see the black arrow. That's where you'll see the pictures from, in a moment, and there's the Sea of Galilee in front of it. This is what it looks like from the cliffs, looking out over the plain of Gennesaret. This is a valley, by the way. This plain is a plain that's five miles long and two miles wide. It's where Jesus healed multitudes of people, according to Mark 6. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law confronted Jesus here over ritual impurity, according to Mark 7. The Pharisees and Sadducees came here asking Jesus for a sign. Much of His ministry happened in that plain that you see down there below you. There's another shot of that area. I'll come back to this slide in a moment, but you can see looking down at the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee, many of the places that are very important in Scripture appear. And, again, will come back to this.

If you look due east from the cliffs of Arbel, you look to the Golan Heights, across the Sea of Galilee. By the way, let me just stop here and say, when you're in Israel, you understand why Israel has to maintain control of the Golan Heights, because if they didn't control it, Syria would be up there on that hillside, over the Sea of Galilee, one of their major freshwater supplies, shooting down on them like shooting ducks. So, when they took the Golan Heights, they pushed Syria back and bought themselves some room, some space, some breathing room from Syria.

We stayed in Tiberias, which is only mentioned a couple of times in Scripture. It was a Roman city. Jesus and the Jewish people would have steered clear of it as much as possible in Jesus' time. But the Sea of Galilee was sometimes, a couple of times, called the Sea of Tiberias in the New Testament. Here is somebody having a tough life, boating on the Sea of Galilee.

By the way, notice the mountains that surround the Sea of Galilee. You hear about those storms that come up. You read about the storms. This is another, a lesson for another time, but the Sea of Galilee is perfectly situated so that when the winds come blowing, it can create, even though it's not that large a body of water, it can create incredibly impetuous storms, because of the makeup - the makeup of the surrounding mountains and the way the wind comes blowing through. We experienced that in just a small way. When we left one side of the lake, it was perfectly calm. And then as the sun began to go down and we got toward the other side of the lake, the wind came through a particular cove by the cliffs of Arbel there, and literally begin to stir up the water so that we were seeing whitecaps before we got to the other side. So, a lot of what you read about is because of that.

And I had to throw this one in. This is suffering on the Sea of Galilee. This is where we stayed and - as we made our various sightseeing tours from there. This is looking at Tiberius, by the way, from the other side, standing on the east side of the city of Galilee, looking at Tiberias across the way on the west side.

Now, let's go to the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee, because it's really what's strategic. Here, again, is that slide. I'm not going to cite all of these places, but I want you to see the Mount of Beatitudes which is over here in this area. And here's Capernaum, the city of Bethsaida, and the plains of Bethsaida over here. We're going to just kind of work our way around the northwest corner of the lake, starting with the Mount of Beatitudes.

The suggestion of this hill - the church, of course, is a late addition. But the suggestion of this hill, for the location of the Sermon on the Mount, is a good one because there's enough room for crowds to gather. They once had a particular event when the Pope came to Israel, and they prepared an area here that would have held 100,000 people. And so, it's well suited to a large group like many of the venues when Jesus taught. Here is the Church of the Beatitudes, just to remember that event. And you see it up on the hillside there and the Cove of the Sower.

By the way, you remember, that there was an occasion in Mark 4 (we'll get there in a few months) when Jesus was teaching a large crowd. And He had to get in a boat and push out from the shore in order for everybody to hear Him, for Him to teach. This may very well be near that site as well, if not the exact site. This is the Cove of the Sower from the top. Notice, you can barely see the people down on the shoreline. You see the people standing down there, particularly over here. You see a couple of people. And yet the acoustics of that area are such that Doug Bookman, who travelled one day with us, he actually did, as an experiment, he had some students up on the side and he had the... He went down and spoke from the edge of the water. And his voice carried all the way up to that entire grassy area. So, listeners - a large crowd could hear, with no problem, someone that they could barely even see because of the way the hillside is configured.

Now, we go on around that upper end of the lake to Capernaum. This was my favorite place on the whole trip because it's one of those mostly untouched spots. Again, reminding you where it is. It's there on the north side of the lake, or the north side of the Sea of Galilee. There's an aerial view of what remains of Capernaum. We'll go down there in just a moment and look at it a little closer.

Capernaum's name, by the way, simply means "the village of Nahum". We don't know if that's the biblical Nahum or not, but the town began 200 years or more than 100 years before Christ. Jesus made this His home when He left Nazareth. He settled down here, according to Matthew 4. Several of His disciples were from this village - Peter, Andrew, James, and John were all fishermen who lived in Capernaum. Matthew, the tax collector, also lived here. This was one of those three cities that were cursed by Jesus. It may have had as many as 1500 residents in Jesus' time. It was a fishing town. It was also on the border of two regions, so there was a customs station on that border between Herod Antipas' region and Philip the Tetrarch. And Matthew had a tax franchise business there to collect people moving from one region to the other region. You remember, Jesus calls him into ministry from that tax office. It was also well suited on the international highway. And for that reason, Jesus probably chose this town. It was far more strategically located than Nazareth. If you trace across the top of the Sea of Galilee, an international road came right through Capernaum. And so, it would have been an ideal place for Jesus to perform His miracles, to teach, and for travelers coming through both ways to have carried the word about His ministry to others. Matthew 4 says that He came and dwelt in Capernaum. Matthew 9 says this was His own city. Mark 2 says He came back to Capernaum. It was... and He was at home. Jesus - His home for most of His earthly ministry, was here in Capernaum.

Now, this view gives you two structures that remain from the time of Jesus. One is underneath that odd looking, blue-shaped building on the right - on the left. That's a church, a Catholic Church, built over the remains of Peter's house and, what you see on the right, the remnants of the synagogue of Capernaum.

So, let me just kind of walk you through those. Here, first of all, is that church built over Peter's house. You can look down underneath it and there's the remnant of what was Peter's house. This is one of those sites that is almost certainly true. The traditional location of Peter's house is almost certainly correct. It has a strong ancient tradition. It was a fisherman's house. It was in the fisherman's quarter of the village. The owner of this house was wealthy enough to own his own business based on the size of the home. It was turned into a church by Christians early on. They found Christian graffiti and other ways to identify that it was turned into a church. So, it's one of those sites that's almost certainly the real deal.

Next to, just really 40-50 feet away, stands the synagogue there at Capernaum. You can see a little bit of what's left. It was the most impressive of the synagogues. The white stones, that you see standing here and built, were built probably after the ministry and life of Jesus. But it was built over the synagogue, the foundation of the synagogue of Jesus' time apparently. Jesus had so much of His ministry in this synagogue. He taught here. He was confronted by a demoniac here. He healed the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, you remember, Jairus' daughter. He healed the servant of the centurion who had built the synagogue. He gave His famous sermon on the bread of life in this place after feeding the 5000.

Now, when you look at the inside of it, you see the benches. And you saw in the video, we were seated on those benches along the side walls. That's probably where the elders sat. They lined the walls. And there were probably mats put on the floor inside for people to sit. So, those pews really aren't that uncomfortable, after all. The doors faced Jerusalem and people prayed toward Jerusalem. Here's another picture of the interior.

By the way, some things never change. This is an inscription found in the synagogue that gives the name of financial donors with a request that the Lord bless the donor in return. By the way, we have no plans to do that with the children's building. But some things don't change.

There was also a kind of fellowship hall adjoined to most of the larger synagogues. It was used, this room was used, as a school. It was used as a court at times, as a hostel for visitors, as a dining hall, and as a meeting place - a kind of community center, just as our fellowship hall becomes. This is what this synagogue would have looked like when it was fully standing - just the rendering of it from descriptions that are given.

Now, let me show you one other picture of this synagogue. You'll see the white stones on top? Those are the stones of the synagogue built after the time of Jesus, but you can see, below it, those black basalt stones. Those are probably from the synagogue in which Jesus taught. And this synagogue was built as a replacement on top of those original foundation stones. They go all the way around and are underneath all of the later walls.

Here is a millstone. It's huge, by the way. It stands about four feet tall and, you remember, Jesus' famous words, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea."

Here's an olive press - again, a huge piece of equipment. Olives were used for so many different things and the products from them.

We went on around the Sea of Galilee. And most of you may not know - the Jordan River empties into the Sea of Galilee on the north and exits the Sea of Galilee on the south. There's the entrance of the Jordan River into the Sea of Galilee on the north. There, again, is another shot of it.

Here is the plain of Bethesda. This is almost certainly where the feeding of the 5000 took place. There's a little village there that they've excavated, still around the north side of the Sea of Galilee.

Now, let me hurry with just a couple of other things. The first century boat - this is around... Now we're on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. This is a model of a boat that would have held 12 to 15 people. This is, very likely, the size and kind of boat Jesus and His disciples would have traversed the Sea of Galilee in. They found one of these buried in the mud, the remnants of one, and they have it wonderfully displayed on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. But this is the model or replica. This is what it would have looked like inside. You remember the descriptions of Jesus and His disciples, Jesus sleeping, and all of those things.

Here is one of the fish - comes out of the Sea of Galilee. This - you always have to do as a tourist is eat one of Saint Peter's fish, as they're called. There are three different kinds of fish predominantly taken from the Sea of Galilee. This is one of them. By the way, the loaves and the fish - those were probably little sardines, kind of sardine that is found in the Sea of Galilee. It wouldn't have been much fish at all for Jesus to have taken and to have fed so many people. It wouldn't have even been this large.

Here is the very south end of the Sea of Galilee. You can see it over here to the left, looking across the Jordan Rift Valley. The Jordan River flows down through here, toward the Dead Sea.

Very quickly, we went up to the Golan Heights - that area that was taken by Israel, back from Syria. There's a view of Mount Hermon - so much that Scripture talks about the beauty of Mount Hermon. That's Mount Hermon, about 9300 feet above sea level. There's another shot of it. It's described for its beauty, for so many other factors. That's up toward the Golan Heights. And you saw these "harbin tall?", which is the former outpost the Israelis had where they were right on the border with Syria. And they now have turned this into a place that tourists can go. Right across there is the Syrian town of Quneitra. So, you can see it. There's the border - that farmland is Israel's, and right down there, on the other side before the city, is the border with Syria. And this is a former outpost.

The last place I want to show you tonight is Dan. You remember, often, when the land of Israel is described, it's described as from Dan in the north, to Beersheba in the south. Here's Beersheba, down here in the very southern end. That means all of Israel. So, now we're at Dan in the north. Dan is a beautiful place. You remember, the tribe of Dan wasn't originally assigned this spot, but they didn't particularly like their spot. And so, they asked for this, and you can see why they desired it. It's a beautiful area. The head waters of the Jordan River are up at Dan. Here's another shot in the Dan Nature Reserve - absolutely beautiful. This water comes from Mount Hermon and other springs and it's always really, really cold. It was like walking by an air conditioner as we walked by this water.

The ancient city of Dan was there as well. Here is the ancient gate, probably built by Ahab, dating back to the 700s before our Lord. That gate was built by Ahab. I want to show you though. This is an interesting thing. You saw Evelyn and a couple of other folks sitting on this little step, outside the gate. You remember reading about the elders meeting outside the gate or at the gate? The gate was an important place in the Old Testament. It's where a lot of business was done. It's where the government officials sat. The elders of the city would meet there and make decisions about the city. It would have happened in this area. And this particular, sort of a stepped canopy, is probably a place for the ruler to sit. You remember that David sat at the gate in a number of the biblical stories as well as Solomon, or excuse me... David and Absalom (was the name I was looking for) sat at the gate. And you remember Absalom met with the people and turned them against David. It probably would have been a scene very much like this where he would have had a place to meet the people as they came and went, and to turn their hearts to himself. This is where politics were done - was at the gate.

But I want to take you to a worse place in Dan. This is a remarkable find. This is one of the high places from the time of Jeroboam. Here is me holding one of the horns of the reconstructed horns of Jeroboam's altar. There would have been an altar here. They found one of the horns and they've reconstructed the rest of it from those horns. This is another shot. You can see that there is a green tree here, an oak tree. There is what is called the high place. And there is an altar.

When you read about Jeroboam... In fact, let's turn there as we finish our time together. Turn to 1 Kings 12. 1 Kings 12 and look at verse 26. You remember, the kingdom split - Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Jeroboam with 10 tribes in the north. And here's how Jeroboam responded. Verse 26: "Jeroboam said in his heart, 'Now the kingdom will return to the house of David [in other words, 'I'm in trouble. If I don't do something to keep the people from going down to Jerusalem for the feasts, to worship, I'm in trouble.'] If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah. So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, 'It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.' He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi [they weren't qualified]. Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense."

This is the altar that Jeroboam built in the north, not Bethel but in Dan. The same sort of thing. Here it was, on this platform, that he put one of those golden calves and the people of Israel were told, "Here is your God". Now, don't misunderstand. Jeroboam didn't immediately say to these people, "Look. You don't need to worship the God of the Bible anymore. Here's another god for you to worship." Instead, what Jeroboam did was much more crafty, much more subtle. That golden calf probably wasn't intended to represent Yahweh. Instead, it was to represent the bull on which He rode. It was to symbolize His power. So, in other words, He is simply setting up an alternate way to worship the true God of Israel. It ultimately became pure paganism. But it began as syncretism, as the worship of Yahweh, but in a way that Jeroboam decided. And it turned the heart of the people away. Sacrifices were made here. Eventually, you remember the Old Testament often says that they went to the high places and it's hard in mixed company to describe what happened in these places. But let it be said that it's described as the place God constantly says where you played the harlot under every tree. That's the picture of what happened here. Not only was there spiritual harlotry, in that they were worshipping someone other than God or God in a way that He had not prescribed, but it was also physical harlotry because these platforms were made so that the priestesses, who were kept in these pagan places, could worship with the men who came in the sight of the gods. It was the most extreme form of paganism.

We're back where we began, because the same God who said, "I'm going to put you there in that land of Israel. I'm going to put you in that land so that I will put My grace on display. I've chosen you, the weakest out of all the nations, insignificant - I've chosen you and, in that, I'll show My grace." God also put them where He put them to show the nations His wrath because He promised them that if their hearts turned aside to idols, what would happen. If they worshipped other gods, they would be erased from the land, removed from the land. And, here in Dan, you see a testimony to God's character, to His wrath against sin. So, when you look at the nation of Israel, realize that God used them as an object lesson to the nations, to us. The object lesson was: "Here is blessing to those on whom I set my love, who love Me and follow Me. And here is My wrath on those who turn from Me to worship other gods." God literally used Israel, the land of Israel, as a stage to set Himself on display.

Next week, we'll look at Jerusalem in the south.

Let's pray together.

Father, we are amazed at Your providence, to see how You placed Your people whom You chose, the descendants of Abraham, as a testimony to the nations of both Your grace, as well as Your holiness and Your wrath against sin. And Father, we still see those testimonies today in those of Abraham's descendants who have embraced Your Son as Messiah and worship Him, and those who live in paganism or who refuse to acknowledge Your Son. Father, I pray that You would help us to remember the lessons that You taught through this land and through this people. May we, as the church, as we're learning in Ephesians, may we now be the platform on which You put Your great character on display. But, Father, may that always be in obedience and blessing. We pray it in Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen!