about series four
Dead Sea:The person who trusts in man for protection is cursed because his heart has turned away from God. He will wither away like a desert bush instead of growing and become unfruitful as the barren salt land around the Dead Sea, unable to support life.
Jeremiah 17:6 “For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitants.”
How are we to respond to temptation in an immoral, irreligious and irreversible environment?
What should we do when wrong is considered right, when the spiritual climate is hopeless and judgment is imminent?
Nothing has changed since the time of Abraham. People become comfortable in their surrounding sin and it will cost them their lives. In order to change we must separate ourselves before sin strikes and hold fast to the promise of God’s forgiveness. When the disease of sin has become epidemic, it is fatal to any place, their sin was the most unnatural and abominable wickedness that they were now set upon, a sin that still bears their name, and is called Sodomy. How foolish it is to perish in sin. We now live in a world that looks very much like Sodom, and who can save us? Those that allow themselves in unnatural uncleanness are marked for the vengeance of eternal fire. They were not ashamed to own it, and to prosecute their design by force and arms. Evil has a way of encroaching upon us when we turn from the truth of God.
Qumran:The finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls was of greatest interest to all peoples of the world. Not only a wonderful archaeological find of immeasurable importance, also is of theological and historical importance to all Biblical scholars of the three monotheistic religions: Christianty, Islam, and Judism. A visit to Qumran has now become of primordial importance to the tourists of the Holy Land. It is also in Jerusalem, at the museum of the Department of Antiquities or at the Palestine Archaeological Museum that the majority of the finds of Khirbet Qumran are now partly exhibited and partly still under study for new finds and acquisitions are always adding to the bulk of the material.
Masada stands on the summit of a high mountain, commanding a view of the Dead Sea and the historical route that traverses its length. The name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 1,300 ft (400 m) high. According to Josephus, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In 66 CE, at the beginning of the First Jewish-Roman War against the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish extremist rebels called Sicarii (approx. 940, led by Eliezer Ben Yair) took Masada from the Roman garrison stationed there. In 72 CE, the Roman governor of Iudaea, Lucius Flavius Silva, marched against Masada with the Roman legion, X Fretensis, and laid siege to the fortress. After failed attempts to breach the wall, they built a circumvallation wall and then a rampart against the western face of the plateau, using thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth. Masada became famous after the First Jewish-Roman War (also known as the Great Jewish Revolt) when a siege of the fortress by troops of the Roman Empire led to a mass suicide of the site's Sicarii when defeat became imminent.
“We chose to die as freemen rather than go into bondage.”
They set all the building ablaze and chose death over capture, defeat, or slavery to Rome. Archaeology indicates that the Sicarii modified some of the structures they found there; this includes a building which was modified to function as a synagogue facing Jerusalem, (in fact, the building may originally have been one), although it did not contain a mikvah or the benches found in other early synagogues. Remains of two mikvahs were found elsewhere on Masada.
We face the same decision today, to live as freemen or to die in bondage. Because of the sacrifice of Christ blood we are no longer slaves to the bondage of sin.
Let us go up to Jerusalem!
There is no other place on earth that attracts so many different people - all seeking love. Coming to Jerusalem is a Spiritual journey.
2 Samuel 2:1 “And in came to pass after this, that David enquired of The Lord, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the Lord said unto him, Go up…”
Jerusalem is the holy city (to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), while being the modern capital of the State of Israel and the country`s largest city. The City of Gold, located in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea as it has come to be known in both languages, is a unique place where the first century rubs shoulders with the twenty-first century. Jerusalem is a city where one can find the picturesque "old" neighborhoods that are nestled against the modern designs of the Western world bringing together the old and new. It is one of those places which one has to see to be believed.
The Western Wall, also known as The Kotel, is a part of the Temple Mt that survived the destruction of the Second Temple and remains standing. The Western Wall is holy due to its proximity to the location on the Temple Mt of the Holy of Holies of the Temple, the Most Holy Place in Judaism. Due to Jewish religious restrictions on entering the most sacred areas of the Temple Mt, the Western Wall has become, for practical purposes, the holiest generally accessible site for Jews to pray.
Many Jews often leave written prayers addressed to God in the cracks of the wall.
According to a commonly held belief in Judaism, the Temple Mount is to be the site of the final (Third) Temple, to be rebuilt before the coming of the Jewish Messiah.
I Kings 5:5 “And behold, I purpose to build an house unto the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke unto David my father, Saying, thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build an house unto My name…