The Jordan Wilderness

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.

Genesis 13 · chapter mention

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.

Ezekiel 47 · chapter mention Ezekiel 47 · chapter mention

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

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

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

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

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 3 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 3. John the Baptist and here's part

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

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,

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

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

Mark 1 · chapter mention Mark 1 · chapter mention

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

Mark 1 · chapter mention

wilderness and preached. The baptism of repentance for

the remission of sins, turn over to Luke Chapter 7.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 7 and I have those up there by the way, if you want

Luke 7 · chapter mention

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.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Don't over to Matthew chapter 3. And we have a couple, will stay

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

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

Luke 4 · chapter mention

verse number 1 gives us a pretty good idea of exactly what's

happening there. Luke chapter 4, and verse number

Luke 4 · chapter mention

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.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

I'm not going to get there yet. Luke chapter 10 and verse 30.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

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

Luke 10 · chapter mention

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.