Youth Corps was formed to help young adults be a part of the work of the Church. This video shows the Youth Corps Project in Jordan and Israel and the lessons we can learn from this historic and prophetic part of the world.
I usually do travel on behalf of the French Department in French speaking areas, but because of the travel background that my wife and I have, we were asked to accompany a youth corps, United Youth Corps Project, this summer. We did have a rather long Youth Corps Project to Jordan and Israel and I have put together some video to show you that, so I hope...yes, we're warming up the machine here.
Let me just say a few introductory words about it and then we'll roll the video and I'll give some commentary over the top of it and then I'll have a message and, hopefully, draw some lessons that we can all find useful at the end of it.
The United Youth Corps has been in existence for quite a few years. We had some of our early Youth Corps Projects in 2000, even in '99 I believe we had one, so it's almost ten years old, and it was formed to help our young adults be a part, feel a part of the work of the Church, and so it offers service opportunities to qualified young adults in the 18 to about 30 age range. They supply, most of the time, some of the financing, so it's almost self-funded, but we do offer them opportunities to go to some pretty unusual places in the world and participate in Church service projects.
We have such projects in a number of countries in Africa. We've had them in South America, we've had them in the Caribbean, we've had them in Asia, and we've also had them in the Middle East. This is the second occasion that we have done this.
The project this summer included service in two schools, which I will show you in a moment, in Jordan, one in Amman and one farther south of Amman near Petra; as a matter of fact, in a little rural village and there was also working on an archaeological excavation in the town of Megiddo in Israel, or Tel Megiddo I should say. I'll give a little bit more explanation about that, as well.
So, I think, without any further ado, we'll just start the video. I'll give you some commentary and then I'll make some comments about it afterwards and we'll look at some Scriptures together.
This is just a montage of scenes of things that occurred over the summer and you'll get a little bit more detail later on in the video as we go through it. I often give the disclaimer, these are not official Church productions, this is something that I put together on my desktop at home so it's not a professional production, but I hope that you will enjoy getting a view of what I consider, really, one of our most interesting and rewarding Youth Corps projects so far.
I will mention, as we are going through here, who the participants were. We had Liz Cannon, Melea Martin, Joshua Messerly, John Nichols, Jessica Scholtz, Rick Shabey, Kristen Waldrup, and Garrett Wayne. We will talk about that a little later. Matthew and Mary-Ann Bates also participated after serving for a year at the Amman Baccalaureate School as volunteers.
Our project goals, of course, were service, education, a wonderful biblical education, you'll see a little bit of that, identify with the work of the Church, and one of the Youth Corps ideas is to understand the vision and the need for the Kingdom of God and we'll talk more about that later.
So, here are participants, I already read the names to you. The project was directed by Mr. David Baker, my wife and me, and our daughters, Fiona and Tatiana, also participated, traveling at our expense, but they pretty much did what everybody did.
We started with some touring.
Machaerus was one of Herod the Great's palaces. This is where John the Baptist was imprisoned and where he was executed. Probably in one of these caves. They were known to have served as prison cells, so Herod was up on the top of this palace and that's where John was and where he died, so we were able to tour there as we were driving around Jordan.
This is Mt. Nebo. Of course, Mt. Nebo was the place where Moses got to view the Promised Land just before his death and he died after having this view and then God buried him in a secret place someplace on Mt. Nebo. So, that's quite an interesting and thought-provoking visit to make.
Bethany beyond the Jordan is on the Jordanian side of the river and it is the place mentioned in the Bible where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. We know that it was someplace close to here. This is the traditional site. You can see they are trying to restore it now for tourist reasons.
I put the Jordan River in quotes because it's not much of a river anymore. There's such a demand for water in the Middle East that they are pumping it almost dry, so it's more of a pond, now, in places.
Jerash was one of the cities of the Decapolis, which is mentioned in the New Testament. Jesus traveled through this area. This would have been a First Century Roman city, most of these ruins, so this is contemporary with Jesus and it's very possible He taught here. It is mentioned that He traveled through some of the cities of the Decapolis.
This is a Roman theater and, of course, each time we went to these places, we did...besides having fun... we also, of course, read the Scriptures and explained the significance of all of it as we were going from site to site.
It can really kill you, touring in the heat, though, and Mr. Baker found a convenient place to rest there.
We were visiting a place called Ajalon where there is a Crusader era castle and some Jordanian men wanted to let Kristen have a photo taken with the traditional caphia and they were kind and friendly. And here we are visiting a castle built during the Crusader period. So, you find European-looking castles here in the Middle East that date from that time; quite an interesting view.
This is Gadara, this is the place where Jesus cast the demons out of the man and they went in the pigs that ran down the hill and drowned themselves in the Sea of Galilee that you can see in the distance.
And, looking in another direction, you have the Golan Heights there, this belongs to Syria, but it's still occupied by Israel because of the war in '67, and we often stayed in local...sometimes stayed in local accommodations like here, where we ate with a local family for dinner and stayed in a rest house.
This fellow's name was Hussein and he acted as tour guide to this place here, which is Pella. Pella was the first place of safety. Eusebius mentions that the First Century Christians who were warned by Jesus' prophecy in Matthew 24 took refuge here just before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. So, that also is quite interesting to consider and to walk through the excavations of Pella.
Then, it was time to head south with half the group. We went down to this rural village that I mentioned before, to begin a kindergarten day camp, teaching English and some notions of English and just providing experiences for these young children that they wouldn't have in the more limited circumstances in which they live.
We're driving through the Arabian Desert here. They don't have deer crossings. They do have camel crossings, if you can see the sign, so watch out for crossing camels.
This is Al Rajef, as you can see, a very rural village, probably only about 10 miles as the crow flies from Petra and it is, as you can see, a developing village. This is the local, sort of, town community center and it was here that you can read the banner very clearly. It says, "Welcome teachers who are going to teach at the camp," in Arabic. We arrived and hit the ground running, getting everything ready for the activities that had been planned for the children.
We are meeting here with the local town authorities. They're discussing their hopes for the camp and we're going through that with them, with translation as needed.
Here are some of the teachers, school teachers, during the year, who worked at the camp with us. You can see the ladies always keep their heads covered. It's a fairly traditional area. We didn't speak very much Arabic and they didn't speak a lot of English, so we had name tags in both languages, color coded, so we could keep them in their appropriate groups. There were 40 children in all and it was really a delight to work with them.
Here we see Jessica showing some paper-folding origami type things that she was going to teach them and they were very excited by even very simple things, just because they don't...aren't exposed to the same kinds of things that our children would be. So, they were coloring, we provided lots of crayons for them; some of this came via the Baccalaureate school in Amman where the Bates have worked, so they had the chance to try lots of things that American children grow up doing, but which they are trying for the first time.
They were learning things like colors in English and numbers and body parts; very simple things their parents very much wanted them to be introduced to in English.
Here is a science experiment where ice cubes dyed with food coloring, different colors, are allowed to melt together to show what happens when you mix blue with yellow, for example, and here they are cutting out puppets, and all of this was overseen from first thing in the morning till about one in the afternoon by our volunteers, and then the afternoon was spent preparing for the next day.
Here is my wife helping out in the kitchen. Some of the teachers spoke a little bit of English, so it was possible to communicate and she really enjoyed getting to know many of them.
This was musical chairs. This was a big hit of an activity after we figured out something interesting. You know, they really enjoy dancing. We did have a problem, at first, because we played it the American way, one chair short and then there was a rush to find...you know...someone gets left out. We nearly had a couple of fights on our hands, so we invented a new version which is enough chairs for everybody. They seemed to have just as much fun, notice, even though there are enough chairs, he liked that color chair, so it's a patriarchal society.
They love to dance. Here's some Arabic music that they were dancing to, and this is freeze dancing. When the music stops, you stop moving. It teaches coordination and listening skills and they really enjoyed that. (Oh! The music stopped.)
Now, some of the boys didn't like dancing and sort of refused to dance until Joshua scooped one up on a little chair and danced with him and, suddenly, the boys thought that was pretty good, so there was a lineup after that and Josh got quite a workout for the rest of that class. He's got...biceps are growing there.
Breakfast and lunch was provided each day. This was the...we didn't provide the funding for that, but we did help with distribution, as you can see, so it was a chance to really spend a lot of time with the kids and they were really delightful. We even introduced them to Oreo cookies, as you can see.
Our volunteers set a very, very good example. The local town officials were very impressed with them and earnestly hoped that we could do something like that again.
Meanwhile, back up in Amman, four of our volunteers were working at the Young Muslim Women's Association's school at the Bunyat Center. Some of you may remember that name from years back. Mr. David Baker, who co-directed this project, actually worked here as an Ambassador College student 25 years ago: same building, same place.
This school is for mentally challenged people, usually younger people, mostly Downs Syndrome, but some others as well. Notice the mattresses in the background. This is the school not normally set up to be 24 hours a day, but during this summer camp they just stayed through, had their meals here, slept in the classrooms, and they enjoyed many similar activities, actually, to what was happening at the other camp.
So, here, our staff members are cutting out puppets to be glued on paper bags to make little hand puppets and it was really a 24-hour-a-day job. They could be called on pretty much 24/7 whenever help was needed with something.
Some of the students had real musical ability. Some of them danced quite well. Some of them, this fellow, played drums very well and, again, they loved to dance. Three or four times during the day there would be a music and dancing break and everything would stop and they would turn the music on and, fortunately, it is not hard to learn some of these dances. The steps are not real complicated. All it takes is a lot of good will and usually they dance...men dance together and women dance together. As I mentioned, it is a pretty conservative society, although the barriers were a little lower at this school because the volunteers are not being paid very much, they do this because they love the campers, they have...some of them have family members that are there and so there is a bit more informality among the teachers, which many of them said they really appreciated.
This is a typical Jordanian lunch with pita bread and hummus and things of that nature.
One day they had parents' evening, so they spiffed up the camp a little bit and in a desert area that means washing everything down to get the...of course, they had time for a little fun with water balloons and...you notice that in the Middle East things often escalate, you've noticed that in the past? Well, that's what happened here.
So, there's Garrett. This is the before picture. Everyone is still relatively dry, but that didn't last long. That's Kristen, incidentally, going in the bucket. And, of course, the students are mixing in with that, as well, and just having a wonderful time. They thought it was great to see the teachers, and staff, get soaked. This fellow is watching from a safe, dry distance. And, I think everybody is about as wet as they can be.
This is a portrait in camp and we formed a lot of really wonderful friendships there.
This is Salah, one of the official staff members, who is also a potter. In fact, he makes very beautiful pottery that's sold to raise funds for the school and he first gave a demonstration and then let our volunteers have a try at it, as well. So, each of them got some hands-on training. It is harder than it looks.
I am only showing you the ones that succeeded, not the ones where they had to glop it altogether and start over. There were some of those too, but, of course, this is something that's mentioned in the Bible. It was a common, very important skill in biblical times and God Himself compares Himself to a Potter molding us. We're His workmanship.
There's John doing his and here he has his chance. It's much easier than it looks, I mean harder than it looks, sorry, and Melea doing hers as well.
So, the camp concluded on the final day with a...sort of an awards or a thank-you ceremony where everyone sat together and...I wonder if we can even take the lights out up over the stage, here, I think we've done that before. They thanked each of the volunteers by name and explained, both in Arabic and in English, the various things they did and have been so much appreciated. That was Melea's turn.
This was the whole camp. They spent a good week together, pretty much 24 hours a day, and here we have the staff that formed some very solid friendships also that they won't soon forget and, again, our young people set a very fine example here and we were told they really hope we can come back and work with them again.
I had the chance for a little bit more touring in Jordan before we crossed the border to go to Israel. We did have one day in Petra. Petra in the Bible is called Selah or sometimes Mt. Seir. It belonged in the area of Edom and then, around 300 B.C., Nabateans took over.
This is the only entrance, it's called the Siq, a very narrow entrance in and out of Petra, which made it very easy to defend, very difficult to take, but it's mentioned several times in the Bible. In II Samuel 8, it's mentioned that David killed 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt, which would be someplace in here, very nearby.
And here we are coming out of the Siq now and, as you come out of this very narrow and high chasm, you come on a very famous façade here called The Treasury. You've seen this in different movies, Indiana Jones went in there one time, and these facades are carved right out of the face of the cliff and there are rooms, not very big rooms compared to the size of the façade inside. It's rather disappointing when you step inside, but it is quite impressive to see the carvings and the farther you move into Petra the more of the facades that you'll see.
There are Bedouins who live there and provide camel rentals, if you want. Take a load off your feet. Camels are not the most comfortable mode of transportation, but sometimes it's better than walking.
You'll still see them with their herds of goats. You'll see that a little bit later. I jokingly say the Bedouins live by milking their goats and occasionally tourists, as well.
Just facades. This is a theatre that would have seated thousands of people. This is dated from the Nabatean era.
And, there are places to climb to various heights. There are high places. This is actually the mount that gives its name to Petra or Selah and it was from the top of this mountain in II Chronicles 25 that Amaziah threw 10,000 Edomite captives. He dragged them up to the top of the hill and executed them by throwing them off. That's II Chronicles 25. So, the nation of Israel penetrated into this area quite often.
This is a view from the high place of sacrifice and you get a view of the largest, most open part of Petra, but it is really huge. You get these beautiful rock formations carved by the wind and the sand and, as I mentioned, you still do see Bedouins with their goats living very much like they might have some thousands of years ago with a few modern updates.
We did have a day to explore and we were pretty foot sore by the end of it, making a couple of climbs, very steep climbs, to visit some of the views; this particular façade here, which is called The Monastery, that's probably the second most famous one. All of this carved out of solid rock, that's really quite amazing. And, getting up and getting down is not very easy.
They do chew their cud, but they don't have parted hoof, they don't have the parted hoof, yes.
And, here we are, after a long day, discovering this very interesting place mentioned in the Scripture several times.
On the Sabbath, we had our Sabbath service in the morning and Bible study, and then drove a few hours in the afternoon to get to our next location. We took the chance to sing some hymns on the way down.
There's a Bedouin tent. We passed many of them in the desert as we went.
Then, after spending the rest of the Sabbath in Aqaba, on Sunday, we set out to explore a beautiful desert area called Wadi Rum. All of this area here would have been what's considered Ezion-Geber in the Bible, where Solomon had his port down around Aqaba and just in the desert, out from it, is a place that's famous in more recent history.
This was the area where T.E. Lawrence or Lawrence of Arabia organized the Bedouins to fight off the Turks during World War I. So this was actually the area where Lawrence of Arabia worked with the Bedouins, got them united and somewhat organized. In fact, you remember the old movie, Lawrence of Arabia, it was actually filmed here, a lot of it was, on location.
It is truly the rock formations, just the space, the vistas, are really incredible, and this turned out to be, actually, one of the high points.
These are the remains of T.E. Lawrence's house, where he lived while he was working in this area and he eventually got the Bedouins organized and they assaulted Aqaba and moved the Turks out of that area, took control of it.
We finished the day up on a place called Sunset Rock, where you have an absolutely beautiful vista of God's handiwork in the sunset, watching all the colors and the play of the desert; really an unforgettable sight.
Then we came back for the night to a Bedouin-style encampment, where we actually camped out in Bedouin tents overnight with local musicians providing music during a goat roast dinner. Sitting around a campfire, all the stars out at night, really an exotic and unforgettable experience; quite an education.
This fellow is smoking what they call a hubbly bubbly, it's just tobacco in there, and usually tourists like to try that. He was surprised none of ours wanted to try it.
And then, just before leaving Jordan, we did have a good part of a day at the Red Sea. Of course, you recognize the Red Sea as the body of water that was parted to allow the Israelites to cross; that was in a different part of the Red Sea, but it's well known for its warm waters and clear water and, also, how many fish you see. So we snorkeled there a little bit, or the volunteers did, and that was the last thing that we did before crossing over the border into Israel.
You can cross from Jordan to Israel. It's one of the few countries where you can make land crossings.
Our first visit was to Masada. Masada was another of Herod's palaces and it was held by Zealot Jews who, during their revolt against Rome around 70 A.D., this was their last holdout against Rome.
The Romans sent armies, this is the tracings of where the Roman army camp was, one of them, there were several, and this is a ramp that was built by hand to allow the siege machines to come up to the wall. When they finally reached the walls, all of the Jews except three inside committed suicide rather than surrender and accept slavery.
The Oasis of En Gedi is the place where David hid from Saul on a number of occasions. You remember one time Saul went in a cave and David cut off his robe. It would have been in one of these caves in this Oasis of En Gedi, whose waters flow into the Dead Sea, which you can see in the background there; but when you get to the top, it is desert all around; very, very hot, and you have a sweet waterspring that just pours out of the cliff. There are a number of pools as you go down and the water is very clean. Some of it is actually bottled, diverted to be bottled and sold in stores.
Down below, we're also able to float in the Dead Sea. You don't swim in the Dead Sea. You just float. There is six times more salt and minerals in it than the ocean, so you float very high up. You can't sink. It's a really strange sensation.
There we see the sunrise coming up over Jordan the next morning, over the Dead Sea.
Qumron, of course, is where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. Those scrolls proved, not that there needed to be proof, but even to skeptics, that the Bible has been faithfully preserved over thousands of years. There was a community of Essenes who lived here and in the middle 1940's these manuscripts that were 2,000 years old were found in caves all around Qumron and some of them are on display, now, in the Israel Museum. We'll see more about that later.
We went into the Palestinian controlled areas (that's an interesting story in itself), to visit the ruins of Jericho. Probably one of the oldest cities in the world, at least that's what the archaeologists feel.
This is Mr. Baker explaining the significance of the archaeological excavations.
We moved up to the Sea of Galilee to the city of Capernaum, which was the headquarters of Jesus' ministry. This sign says that the white synagogue, you see built here, was built on the foundation of basalt from a previous synagogue and that's the one where Jesus would have taught. It mentions Him entering the synagogue and teaching. It would have been on this spot. This is where a lot of what He said, that's recorded in the Bible, would have been delivered.
And, the various implements left over from the First Century period.
Then we drove up to the top of the hill, where we have a view of the Sea of Galilee, and we're sitting or standing here...this photo image is taken from the Mount of the Beatitudes, the traditional area where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. What better place to sit down and read the Sermon on the Mount? So, that's what we did and contemplated that and spent some time taking in the views and thinking about the important things that happened in this region.
This is Acre or Akko, which was built by the Crusader again. This dates from the 1200's, 1300's, when the Europeans were trying to take Jerusalem back from the Muslims and it is a bit strange to find these huge European fortifications built in the Middle East, but that's what you find.
Akko is right on the Mediterranean, so it's quite a beautiful place to visit, even still.
We saw some of the local children doing what children like to do — jumping off high places into the water.
We did visit Mt. Carmel also. Mt. Carmel was the place where Elijah withstood the prophets of Baal. Fire came down from heaven and Elijah had them killed. There is a statue to his honor. They were killed, it says, by a brook or a spring down below, and this is the only spring in the whole area, so it had to have happened right around here. And, again, we sat and were able to read through that...those Scriptures, and imagine all that, while sitting on the location itself.
There's not much left of Nazareth from Jesus' time; in fact, there's nothing left. It probably would have been a very small village when Jesus was growing up, but this was His boyhood home and, so, it was worth driving through. It borders the Valley of Megiddo that we're going to talk about a little bit later.
Over on the coast, we visited Caesarea Maritima, or Palestina sometimes it is called. This was another of Herod's palaces. That was his swimming pool. They had swimming pools 2,000 years ago.
This was where the centurion, Cornelius, lived when he was told to go see Peter, and Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea for two years before appealing to Caesar.
Here we are in Joppa. Of course, Jonah left from Joppa trying to get away from God, so you can guess why they put this statue there, right in the middle of Joppa.
And this is where Peter had his visions of the animals and the sheep and where he received Cornelius also; lots of biblical significance in all of these places.
Right next to Joppa, down below, is the very modern city of Tel Aviv, the economic capitol of Israel. You can see it very clearly from the heights of Joppa.
Then you go up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is up in the mountains and you notice these burnt-out vehicles along the side. These were all destroyed in 1948 during the war, as the Jews were moving up toward Jerusalem to try to free people in the Jewish Quarter that had been blocked up, blockaded.
Here we are on the Mt. of Olives, looking at the Temple Mount. Of course, you recognize the Dome of the Rock built on the location of Solomon's Temple; that's where it would have been most people feel and, also, the Second Temple. And, we're sitting on the Mt. of Olives here, which is the mountain on which Christ will descend at His return, which is why there are lots of people buried there. They want to be the first ones up in the resurrection.
The Western Wall, it used to be called the Wailing Wall, now the Western Wall. This is the holiest site in Judaism because it was part of the retaining wall that held up the foundation of the plateau where the temples were built and so Jews come from all over to pray at this wall. You may notice little pieces of paper in the cracks. Those are prayers. People write things on prayers and stick them in, so that they'll always be there. The hats, the clothes, all have different significance.
The last time I was there I found one of the prayers on the ground and I read it and it said "Farrari" on it, so I don't know if his prayer was answered or not.
Here are some of our Youth Corps volunteers and there you can see all the prayers that have accumulated over the years.
This is the Garden of Gethsemane. These olive...this is where Jesus prayed before and where He was betrayed by Judas. These trees, they say, are about 2,000 years old, so it's possible that some of these trees might have actually been there when Jesus prayed there and when He was betrayed.
Zion Gate. One of many gates that go into the medieval walls of Jerusalem and here we are walking through the streets of the Old City now. Our volunteers had chances over the course of several weekends to really get to know the Old City well, which is a treat.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is built on the traditional spot; that's what the Greek Orthodox, the Catholic Church believes would have been the place of the crucifixion. All of this was built over the top of what they believe was Golgotha and this would be...this is the traditional site of Jesus' burial. You can't prove it one way or the other, but that's the traditional site.
Here we are at the Damascus Gate. We came out of the Damascus Gate because we wanted to visit another interesting site just outside the present walls of Jerusalem, the Garden Tomb. You've probably seen pictures of this before, as well. Mr. Armstrong wrote about it. It is a tomb that matches many of the descriptions in the Bible, although most archaeologists don't feel it's really a Fourth...that it is a Fourth Century tomb not a First Century tomb, but it's another possibility.
Then it was time to go work at Tel Megiddo. A tel is an artificial hill built over centuries by layers of human habitation. This one is 70 feet high, which gives you an idea of how many people lived there.
Here we are taking a tour of previous excavations in preparation to get down to work. We went through the water system that you can see here. They dug a very, very long underground tunnel to a spring in order to bring water inside in case of siege. This was a strong, stronghold city and so it had to pay attention to defense.
Here we are getting off the bus about five o'clock in the morning, that's when the dig day began. We didn't usually walk this quickly up the hill. It was a long walk and we got to watch the sun rise every morning over Armageddon. The Valley of Megiddo, is right down below Megiddo and we'll talk more about that in a bit, as well.
This is what an archaeological dig looks like. It's broken up into neat squares. Everything can be measured, photographed, sketched. Here's John working with his patiche. Lots of different tools you can use. Jessica is using a trowel. It's amazing how much dirt gets moved by one little trowel like that, when you have a hundred of them working at the same time.
Here's Melea actually straining the dirt looking for beads or jewelry and a lot of that was found this year at the dig.
This is something that several of our volunteers did a couple of times a day, called a bucket line, to dispose of the dirt that was dug out as they excavated farther down. We had volunteers working in four different areas and in four different levels. So, they're working at different time periods, which was quite interesting...going from Early Bronze all the way to Assyrian Period. Long bucket line.
This is Josh demonstrating his style. No trowels for Josh. Actually, you don't do that very often, but ever once in awhile.
Israel Museum. This is the Shrine of the Book where the Dead Sea Scrolls are preserved and we were able to see the original Isaiah Scroll, 2,000 years old and a perfect copy.
This is also at the Israel Museum, a scale model of First Century Jerusalem, as it would have been at the time of Christ.
This is the Fortress Antonium, where Jesus would have been judged by Pilot, and this is an artist's conception of what the Temple would have looked like.
In the City of David, we also went through Hezekiah's Tunnel, a similar waterworks tunnel to bring water inside the city walls. It's about a quarter- to a half-mile walk in the dark in cold, thigh-high water, so I think you have to be confident and a little courageous to make that walk.
We had a picnic one Sabbath in this place, the Valley of Hinnom Park. You may recognize the name in the Bible. It's called Gehenna. It was a dump during the time of Jesus. Fires were always burning there and so He used it as an illustration of what would happen to those who refused to repent.
It's possible that the Lake of Fire may actually be in this valley, right below Mt. Zion, since that is Gehenna.
We did have a number of finds. These are some of the finds: a golden pendant, very well preserved clay jars, these are 2,000 to 3,000 years old. When you dig up something and you realize you're the first person to touch it or see it in 3,000 years that is quite interesting.
A stone amulet of a woman.
These are knuckle bones of cows that were used like dice for gambling or for divination.
We did have a final tour of the dig site, as you can see here, and this was an altar table for sacrificing animals that dates back to the Bronze Period, so before Abraham probably.
Here we have our volunteers again, those who participated this summer. They did a very, very good job. Everyone spoke highly of the work they did, the example they set, and everyone involved on the Israeli and the Jordanian side really hoped to see such young people come and participate with them again.
Hope you were able to stay with me. I realize that was fast. My wife said, "I think you put too much stuff in there for just a half an hour," but I wanted to give an overview and then I would like to express a few thoughts with you.
I mentioned before that one of the reasons that we have the Youth Corps is to help our young people identify with the work of the Church. Some of the expressed needs and desired outcomes of the United Youth Corps are (and these come off the website): to understand the vision of and the need for the Kingdom of God, to experience and live the vision of the Kingdom, to identify and participate in the work of the Church and, to understand that by such participation they will have become a part of something bigger than themselves.
I do believe that those goals were achieved in the work of our young people this summer, during the course of this seven-week project.
The first one that was enumerated there was "to understand the vision of and the need for the Kingdom of God." And, nowdays, seeing the Middle East up close, does really help one to understand the need for the Kingdom of God.
We worked in Megiddo, and it was fascinating, the more we learned about the history of that city. The first recorded battle...recorded in history...now, there were others before that, no doubt, but the very first one for which we have an historical record, happened in Megiddo. It happened about 1500 B.C., when a pharaoh fought a coalition of local kings in that area.
There are many other battles mentioned in the Bible that happened right around that tel that you saw on that screen. Deborah and Barak won a victory by the waters of Megiddo, it says. Joshua conquered the city. Solomon made it one of his chariot cities and, in fact, we found stables or, in previous years, excavations have found stables for Solomon's chariots. Josiah was killed in battle, King Josiah, at the walls of Megiddo. In 1917, there was a big World War I battle that was fought in the valley right below Megiddo.
And, interestingly enough, as we were digging in a new area, one that had not been excavated by the modern excavation of Megiddo, we very quickly came across shell casings and even mortar cases from the 1948 war because, when the war for independence began, the Jordanians dug in on top. It was a logical place to make a stand. The Israeli troops had to move them off and you can find implements from all those wars, going all the way back to 1500 B.C. up to 1948. It is truly amazing.
Also, from the top of the hill we could look over and we could see where there was an Israeli prison, just off in the distance. It was built, I learned, on the side of an old British police station and it is now a special prison used to house terrorist type prisoners. People that come out of Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad or groups of that nature, the list is certainly long.
And, we would hear, over the loudspeakers, the call to prayer. We could hear it from that prison every day. It was interesting to think that, where we could see clearly, there were people who were dedicated to the destruction not only of Israel, but wouldn't mind seeing our country go down either.
Megiddo is certainly one of the regions in the world that has been the most fought over in history and, of course, when I mention Armageddon you remember that I was referring to Revelation, chapter 16, let's turn there. This was something, I think, that was never far from our thoughts. Every morning, as we watched the sun rise over the Valley of Esdralon or the Valley of Megiddo, as it's also called, or Armageddon, in Revelation 16, we not only thought about the history of the place, but we thought about what's prophesied for it in the future.
Revelation 16:12-16
Vs. 12 — We're into the angel sounding the trumpets, "The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, its waters were dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared."
Vs. 13 — "I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet."
Vs. 14 — "For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."
Vs. 15 — "Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame."
Vs. 16 — "And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon."
Now, that's exactly where we were. We worked in it and over the top of it, looking out at, day in and day out, and that is going to have a very important place in Bible prophecy, when it's accomplished in the future.
Another city that has been very bloody over the years was Jerusalem, where we spent a great deal of time, as well. We spent four weekends in Jerusalem exploring it. It is fascinating to think about all the things that occurred there, that are mentioned in the Bible. It's ironic that the name "Jerusalem" can be translated as "Foundation of Peace" or "Possession of Peace" or "Teaching of Peace." The word "peace" is always there and yet it has been a scene of incredible and ongoing violence for centuries.
We were able to see, as we walked through it, the different quarters of the city of Jerusalem. There's an Arab or Muslim Quarter, there's a Christian Quarter, there's a Jewish Quarter, and some quarters are safer than others and sometimes it's not a good idea to go into some of the quarters. Things were calm enough while we were there to be able to do so.
Jerusalem is considered holy to three different religions and they haven't always gotten along with each other over time.
Jerusalem to Judaism is holy because of the Temple that used to be there; that's where God, actually God's Presence, was manifested to the people of Israel.
It's, of course, considered holy to Christianity because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and, it's holy to Islam because, according to the Quran, Mohammed had a winged horse (it would be nice to have one of those, wouldn't it?), he had a horse with wings, and it flew from Saudi Arabia, landed on Mt. Moriah where the Dome of the Rock is now, and then flew up to heaven so that Mohammed could have a meeting with Allah. He was back the same night but, because of that, it is considered holy to Islam and, of course, nobody wants to give it up. It's still a great source of tension.
The Muslim world wants it back and the Jews and Israelis want to keep it and, so, the fighting goes on.
During the time that we were there, we were there about four and one-half weeks, maybe five weeks at the most in Israel during this project, there were three separate terrorist attacks that occurred and we were very much aware of them, of course. It was in all of the news.
On July 2, an Arab-Israeli named Hussam Taysir Duwait, with no warning at all, drove a front-end loader out into the street against traffic and tried to cause as much damage as he could. He flipped a bus over full of people, flipped it over on its side, and he hit nearby vehicles and pedestrians. Three people were killed on the spot.
A kindergarten teacher was killed in her car. She had her six-month-old daughter in the car with her, but the front-end loader hit her car a first time and then backed up to have another go at it because he hadn't killed her the first time, and someone was able to snatch the baby out of the car and the child survived, but the kindergarten teacher was killed.
Another woman, originally from Austria, taught blind people, that was her profession. She was killed in the street.
And a man named Jean Raloy, an air conditioner technician, was the third person killed.
At least thirty others were wounded, some dismembered; they lost limbs, it was really gruesome.
He rampaged around on the streets for ten minutes before an off-duty soldier and an armed civilian climbed up on the vehicle and shot him to death; that was the only thing that finally stopped him.
This is not that uncommon. People are surprised and unhappy and they bemoan that, but this is the kind of thing that Israelis live with all the time. It's quite amazing to see how many armed people there are. Soldiers are expected to carry their weapons with them, even when they're off-duty and you see lots and lots of guns in evidence.
On July 11, which was a Friday night, it was a day...let's see...yes, Friday night...it was a day that we were actually staying in Jerusalem. Two Israeli policemen guarding the Lion Gate, that's the gate facing the Mt. of Olives, were shot from ambush, one in the head and one in the chest, by a gunman hiding in the Muslim cemetery. You actually saw pictures of that and probably don't remember it, in some of the video there. My wife and I had walked through that gate and seen the policeman there at that checkpoint, just a couple of hours earlier. The one who was shot in the head died two weeks later and the other one I don't have any more recent news of.
Then, on July 22, there was a...I guess you could call it a copycat attack, another construction equipment attack occurred, again, in Jerusalem, another Israeli-Arab drove a construction vehicle out into the traffic, overturning two cars and hitting a bus. Twenty-four people were injured, one seriously, and he, also, was only stopped when he was shot to death.
The gunman, incidentally, in the cemetery, got away. He's never been found up till now.
These attacks and the fact of having so many armed people present wherever we went, even in Jordan they have to be careful, because they've had terrorist attacks by extremist there, as well. There was a metal detector at the hotel that we used in Amman that we had to go through.
All of that was quite a reminder of how there is no peace in a region that really wants peace. Peace is a really important word in the vocabulary of both Hebrew and Arabic and it was quite striking to us that in Jordan we met wonderful people, friendly people, helpful people, people we enjoyed having as friends, who loved their families and want peace and prosperity for their children, but they don't like Israel being there, and tensions are still high.
We, also, on the Israeli side of the border, met people who were wonderful, friendly, helpful, who we were happy to have as friends, who loved their children and want a peaceful, prosperous future for them, but they will not give up their homeland, and there just doesn't seem to be a solution.
The Prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 59 and verse 8, I'm actually going to quote from Romans 3, where Paul quoted it, I'll quote you Romans, chapter 3, verses 15 to 17, where Paul talking about the whole history of humanity said:
Romans 3:15-17
Vs. 15 — "Their feet are swift to shed blood;"
Vs. 16 — "Destruction and misery are in their ways;"
Vs. 17 — "And the way of peace they have not known."
And, I think that was a huge lesson that all of us had underscored during the time that we were in the Middle East. There are war planes constantly flying over, you see military checkpoints, you go through metal detectors and get patted down, and security and soldiers and military and police, they're just everywhere. It's just a way of life.
God has other plans, though, for this city that wants to be a city of peace, but has been a city of blood for such a long time, and God has had special plans for the city of Jerusalem for a long, long time. I don't know if you have ever looked into that, but, when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac he told him to go to Mt. Moriah and, if you care to note this and check this, II Chronicles 3, verse 1, mentions that Mt. Moriah was also the place where the plague was stopped after David numbered Israel and there was a plague and lots of people were dying as a result of his transgression. God stopped the plague, also, on Mt. Moriah and it turns out that Mt. Moriah is the place where Solomon built the Temple, the First Temple. All of those things happened right there in Jerusalem and those were all symbolic of the fact that God wants Jerusalem to be a place of peace and it will, one day, be a place of peace.
Turn with me to Romans 3:17.
Romans 3:17
Vs. 17 — "The way of peace they have not known," it says, talking about humanity.
And yet, someone has come and will come again, who is going to show the way to peace and guide humanity into the way of peace that it does not yet know. Luke, chapter 1, verse 76.
Luke 1:76-79
Vs. 76 — "And you, child (this is a prophecy about Jesus at the time of His birth), you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,"
Vs. 77 — "To give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins,"
Vs. 78 — "Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;"
Vs. 79 — "To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the ways of peace."
"To guide our feet into the ways of peace," and that's what Jesus was come to do. This is actually talking about John, specifically, but talking about who he was going to prepare the way for; for the One who was going to guide people, the feet of humanity, into the ways of peace.
I would like us, also, to read another passage. This is one that is near and dear to our hearts. We often read it in Isaiah 2. Let's read it in Micah, chapter 4.
Micah 4:1-3
Vs. 1 — "It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the tops of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow to it."
Vs. 2 — "Many nations shall come and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.' For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
Vs. 3 — "He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."
The Kingdom of God will bring peace to the whole world, starting with the Middle East, and that is one region that certainly needs it.
That is a vision that we hope that our Youth Corps volunteers will keep with them. They had the chance to live that and see it and have that hope and that vision of the future. But, it is, brethren, of course, a vision that all of us need to keep clearly in mind, in our lives as well, not just the young among us, all of us need to do that and we're coming up on the Feast of Tabernacles, which helps us focus on that wonderful time to come.
The Bible tells us that you and I are here as Christians today, called out ahead of time, in part, to be ambassadors for that Kingdom. We are to be ambassadors for Christ who will be the King in the Kingdom of God, soon to come.
It is very important for all of us to keep that sense of identity. We need to represent the Kingdom of God now, in our lives, by the way we live, and it's important for us all to keep our minds looking toward the hope of that kingdom to come. It is that hope and that vision that will help us continue to be about our Father's business and focus on what is truly important in life.
There is a word often used in Hebrew in Israel, today, and a similar word in the Arab countries. It is used in place of hello and goodbye and the Hebrew version of it can mean "nothing missing, nothing broken, well being, and complete." That word identifies something the world desperately needs and we saw that so clearly. It is a word that will ultimately be fulfilled only by the establishment of the Kingdom of God that we, collectively, as a Church, are told we must preach and we are doing that.
So, I will end the sermon today with that word. It is a greeting, it is a prayer, and it is a prophecy for the future. The word is Shalom, peace.
