Tonight I sit and reflect on what I have seen so far this week. I will never be able to describe to you the deep closeness that I feel to The Lord being in this Holy Land. Today we went to some amazing places.
Our first stop took us up into the Golan Heights. This is the territory that Israel took from Syria during the 6 Day War. In the Bible you will recognize this area as Bashan. We went to the ancient city of Gamla. This city was destroyed by the Romans in 67A.D. The story says that the citizens of the city, men, women, and children, rather than live their lives as servants to the Romans, went up to the top of the hill that the city is on and committed suicide by jumping off.
After this we went over to the Hermon Stream. This is the river Banias. One of three rivers that join together forming the Jordan River. We saw several ancient ruins. The ruins of a church, an olive press, and houses were among the things that we saw. It is hard to imagine something being over 2,000 years old and I am standing here beside it.
Next we journey to the territory of Dan. This is where Jeroboam erected an altar with golden calves when the kingdom of Israel was divided to replace the one in Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:29-30). It was awesome to see the very places that are mentioned in the Word of God. These are not made up stories from Pixar or Disney! The Word of God is truth, it is alive and powerful! Can anybody tell that I am pumped? God is gracious and full of mercy and truth.
But the place that really stuck with me today was when we went to Caesarea Phillipi. This is a different place from the Caesarea when went to on Monday. This is the place where Jesus asked his disciples, who do men say that I am? Peter spoke up and said you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:13-19).
Jesus took his disciples to this place because it was a cess pool of idol worship. The temple of Pan was there. We visited this temple today. Now listen to this, behind one of the temples of worship it was believed that the gate to the underworld existed. In other words, the gates of hell! And that is not the most exciting part. The best part is that I got to read the story from God's Word on the very spot where it happened. And as I read the words of Jesus when he said the gates of hell shall not prevail against my church, I saw this scripture in a whole new light. Jesus was telling them, you need to understand that even the gates of hades (hell) is not going to stop my church!
I do not have words to describe how I feel as I am typing this blog! God is good! That is all I can say, God is good!
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