Day 2 - Caesarea, Mt. Carmel, Megiddo, Nazareth and Cana

Sorry for the delay in getting Day 2’s blog out. When we got to the ‘kibbutz’ (hotels that are run by communities of local Jews who began settling in Israel when it became a state in 1948) at the Sea of Galilee, they informed us that they had no internet. So I will be posting two days worth this.

We begin touring each day at 8:00. We began Day 2 with a trip to Caesarea. Caesarea was established by King Herod the Great, the king of Judea, who received the title, the Great, not because of his popularity but rather by the fact that he was such an amazing builder. He always had building projects going on, so much so that when he was alive, many of the people in Judea were employed on one or another of Herod’s construction projects. Caesarea was his vacation home of sorts, and sat right on the Mediterranean sea. The setting was magnificent it was not difficult to imagine what it must have been like in that time. Though there are only ruins left, there are enough to get a visual of what it must have looked like.

We started with a bible study in a restored theater, where Paul would have made his appeal before King

Agrippa (Acts 26). After touring Caesarea, including a hippodrome (where they would hold chariot races, gladiator fights and sadly enough the brutal killing of Christians), we headed off to look at a Roman aqueduct, which Herod built in order to get fresh water from Mt. Carmel to Caesarea. It seems that he wanted a fresh water swimming pool (see picture upper left). The aqueduct was 8 miles long with a variance of only eight inches from Mr. Carmel to Caesarea, all that was needed to flow eight miles.

Mt. Carmel is the place where Elijah slew the 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). There is nothing overly spectacular about Mt. Carmel, other than the fact that you know that you are on the mountain where it all took place. However, what is so very spectacular to me is the view of the Valley of Armageddon, where the final battle against good and evil will take place. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who said, upon seeing it, said that he had never seen a finer location for a battle than this valley. It is also known as the ‘Jezreel Valley’ or the ‘Valley of Esdraelon’. I had the opportunity to do a study on 1 Kings 18, with an emphasis on the danger of ‘faltering between two opinions’. Just like Elijah is was a ‘troubler of Israel’, so we will be troublers of those who are hostile towards God. Darkness hates the light.

Upon leaving Mt. Carmel, we headed to the ancient city of Megiddo. Actually, there have been some 25 cities that have been built there, one upon the other. Each one built, destroyed, another built, another destroyed and so on for thousands of years. Some of the ruins which we saw dated back to the times of Abraham. We saw ruins of Solomon’s stables, where he would keep some 450 horses. Horses were incredibly expensive in that day and 450 would have been a large number. Perhaps the most startling thing we saw was a ‘high place’ where the Canaanites would have sacrificed there. We concluded our time at Megiddo with walking down over 100 feet to a sistern that held the water for the city.

As the day concluded, we headed back to the Sea of Galilee, driving through Nazareth, which is now a modern city, and Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle. We were all thankful for our guide, who was able to point out parts of the original city of Nazareth.

Until tomorrow...Shalom!

Day 1 - Arrival in Tel Aviv, Israel

I am going to try and blog our trip to Israel, along with photos of the various sites we visit. It may prove to be an exercise in futility for two reasons. Number one, it is the first time I have tried blogging with photos, and number two there is no guarantee that we will have internet access at all of the hotels we will be staying at. So, here we go!

We left Seattle at around 12:30 PM on our way to Atlanta, GA where we would catch a 10:45 PM flight to Tel Aviv, Israel. There is a total of 39 of us traveling together, fourteen from South Hill Calvary Chapel and another 25 from Calvary Chapel Marysville. Everyone is pretty excited about the trip. Several of the people have been to Israel before including the Calvary Chapel Marysville pastor, Dave Woodward and his wife Shannon, along with several others from their church.

As for us, this will be my third tour of the Holy Land. The first was when my wife Jenny and I came with a group of other pastors to familiarize ourselves with what a tour looks like and how to host your own tour. I didn’t want to bring a group of people from the church without understanding what I was seeing.

In the Spring of 2007, we brought our first group from the church. I must say that the second trip was even better than the first. There is so much to see here that you come away the first time with a bit of an overload of all that there is to see. My second trip here was definitely more meaningful as even more of the glorious history of this amazing land began to fall into place. Things just start making more sense. The opportunity to teach short bible studies at the various sites we visit is an amazing privilege.

As for this year’s trip, I am looking forward to it even more so. We have one person from the church returning on this trip. All the rest of the people are experiencing the trip to Israel for the first time. One thing that is a real bummer for me is that Jenny isn’t with me. She was with me the first two trips and I already miss her. My oldest son Jason, who is also one of my assistant pastors at the church is with me, so that is certainly making this trip all the more special.

We are spending the night in Tel Aviv, at the Dan Panorama hotel. The hotels we stay in are very nice hotels, three and four star hotels, and this particular one is my favorite in Tel Aviv. It sits within walking distance of the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea and within eyesight of the ancient city of Joppa.

Joppa was the home of Simon the Tanner, whose house is by the sea (the Mediterranean Sea) Acts 10:6. I love walking along the shore at night, listening to the waves crash against the rocks, imagining how many times the apostles Paul and Peter sailed from the port of Joppa. Joppa was also the city that Jonah went to, to catch a boat to Tarshish, in disobedience to the Lord’s command for Jonah to go to Nineveh.

Tomorrow, we have a wake-up call at 6:30, breakfast at 7:00 and on the bus for a full day of touring by 8:00 AM. We will drive through Joppa on our way to Caesarea, then on to Mt. Carmel and Megiddo. We will conclude our day of touring by driving through Nazareth and Cana on our way to a kibbutz we will stay in, right on the shores of Galilee.

So until then...Lord willing, I will fill you in on the happenings of the day tomorrow!

"God is easy to find...if you really want to find Him!"

Several years ago I was playing golf with a couple of friends when, on the 11th hole one of them made a ‘hole in one’. It really was an amazing shot and though we were all excited, yelling and screaming, understandably none of us was more excited than the one who hit that incredible shot. As we were walking down the fairway of the next hole, my friend was still beaming about his accomplishment and as he passed by a couple of players on the adjacent hole, he said to them, “Someone just got a hole-in-one on the last hole.” Of course when they responded with, “Who?”, he proudly said, “Me!” I have never let him live than moment down.

Just as my friend was eager to be known, so it is, even more so, with God. In fact, God is so eager to be known, that he has preappointed the times and places of people’s dwellings, just so that He might be discovered. Doesn’t that just blow you away?

Acts 17:26-28
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

How sad it is when people suggest that God is difficult to find. Nothing could be further from the truth! Acts 17 tells us that God determines a person’s time and place of birth with this primary purpose in mind, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him. Don’t you just love this picture of God hoping that we will cry out to Him?

This is how much He loves us! And, lest someone think He is unreachable, the writer assures us, He is not far from each one of us. It was James who said, Draw near to God and he will draw near to you, James 4:8. And so, the next time someone suggest s to you that it is hard to find God, remind them of these verses. The issue is never that He is hard to find, but rather that people just don’t want to find Him!

“No matter how hard you strive...you will never arrive!”

I have begun, once again, to read that most amazing book, The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. If you have a heart that hungers and thirsts for God, it is a ‘must read’. I find that each time I read it, I underline more of it than I had previously underlined. Before I know it, I will have underlined it completely. Then, I suppose, I will have to get another copy and start all over again.

As I read this morning, I found my heart beating faster and faster as I was stirred to go deeper with God than ever. I want to go deep with God. I want to know Him more each day than the day before. I am easily discouraged by the times I fail to do this.

I am continually amazed at how much of God there is to discover. I will always remember, what I once heard a pastor say about the striving to discover God. He said, “No matter how hard you strive...you will never arrive.” I remember thinking that this was a depressing thought, much like going on a trip where you know you will never arrive at your final destination. As I pondered on his statement, I soon discovered its truth, realizing that the reason you never arrive is because there is so much of God to discover.

In the opening pages of The Pursuit of God, there is an introduction entitled Tozer’s Legacy. In it the writer writes, “Perhaps the continued usefulness of this book can be attributed to the writer’s (Tozer’s) great spiritual discovery that to seek God does not narrow one’s life, but brings it, rather, to the level of highest possible fulfillment.” Oh what a wonderful truth this is!

I pray that the Lord will never grow tired of my fumbling through attempts to discover the depths of who He is. I thank Him for His love and patience with me through that process. He is so good!

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing different things that the Lord stirs deep within my heart as I read through the pages of The Pursuit of God once again. My hope and prayer is that you might be encouraged by it and drawn into the exciting journey of discovering that there is more of God to be discovered, than we will ever fully discover.

The prophetic word of God...

Truly one of the most amazing things to me about the word of God is that it is absolute truth. This especially hit me as I was reading through the first three chapters of the gospel of Luke. The things that happened in the those chapters are so profound. Angels speaking and then man speaking, writing down things that could not have known, apart from the directing of the Holy Spirit. Things as it says in Peter, To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us. 1 Peter 1:12. It is so profound to me...that when we read the Word of God, that we are reading things that were revealed to people who didn’t even fully understand what they were writing and that they were written for our advantage. Wow! I love thinking about it.

“It was unbelievable...at least the part I remember!”

Some dear friends of mine, a married couple, recently fulfilled one of their dreams by going ‘skydiving’. I was a little nervous for them, though not excessively, figuring people do it all the time, and live to tell the story. However, I will admit that I was relieved once I knew that they were safe and sound and back on the ground.

I spoke with the husband first, who proceeded to tell me what an amazing experience it was. He described how the ‘skydiving company’ was running so far behind schedule that they ended up having to jump in the dark of the night. I must say, that it did sound awesome as He was describing the peacefulness of it all, once the parachute opened...the full moon, the flash of the lightning bolts that they could see off in the distance, and the thin red line of the horizon as the last hint of sunlight was fading away. Then I talked to his wife!

She explained that the instructor, whom she was harnessed to, had to wrap his arms and legs around her arms and legs to keep them from flailing about and hitting him in the face. She then began to describe how she didn’t remember the first several seconds of the jump. She said that they explained to her that the body reacts to the ‘shock’ of jumping out of the plane in much the same way as it does to being in a ‘car accident’...in that you don’t remember what happened.

After she enthusiastically explained the thrill of her skydiving experience...the part she could remember...I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Two people, harnessed together, plunging to earth at a very high rate of speed, with one of them being in a semi-conscious state, needing to have their arms and legs held...so as not to knock the instructor unconscious. Now, call me crazy, but I am thinking that if God designed your body in such as way that you do not remember the initial shock of such things as car accidents or jumping out of planes, you probably shouldn’t be doing it!

I so want to be like Jesus!

"I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness." David, Psalm 17:15. I think that this is one of the most beautiful sentences in Scripture. What a picture of a heart for God. I want to have this kind of heart. I don't want to be satisfied with anything less than being like Jesus. I know that this won't fully happen until I pass from this life and awake in His presence. The apostle John said, "Beloved, we are now children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him as He is." 1 John 3:2. However, I also know, in the depth of my being, that as I seek to know Jesus...I will find Him, and as I draw near to Him...He will draw near to me and in so doing, I will become more like Him. The apostle Paul said, "...when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away...we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 3:16, 18. And so, I will seek, I will draw near and each day...I will awake looking more like Jesus than the day before.