Israel Part 3

I’ve been torn between so many options which makes it hard to decide. Do I talk about the beautiful Cathedrals that sit on top of “major historical Christian sites” or about the sites that are not as popular.

There are some places that were of interest to me, but wasn’t always under the topic of Dr. G’s discussions.

I think I’ll  choose this last one.

This first picture is of the Plains of Megiddo. Does that sound familiar to you? This area is spoken about in Revelation 16:16. “Here the kings of the earth will gather for the last Great War.”

The Battle of Armageddon.

Now what I found interesting looking out over the plains was the two straight lines. Do you see them? Can you guess what they are? Also close by are several Tilapia Farms. I’ll let you think about it for a while and I’ll put the answer at the end of this post.

The next place is called “The precipice” It is just outside of Nazareth. Now this was Van’s AhHa moment, because the peak was not man made, it was earth and rock. Jesus actually stood here. In all the other “Christian sites” there were no guarantees that that was the exact spot where He was born, or where He was crucified and so on. But this precipice is mentioned in Luke 4:29. God created these rocks. This was tangible. We looked out over the land just as Jesus had over 2000 years ago. Awe inspiring for sure.

Another interesting open-my-eyes place was where David and Goliath battled. Now in 1 Samuel 17 it talks about where the two camps were situated. Okay I’ve seen renditions from an artist point of view ie. children’s picture books, but in no way did this fit with them.

The Philistines were on one hill and Israel was on the other. The valley between them was maybe a mile wide, but close enough to shout at each other. I don’t know I just pictured a wide plain like you see in the movies, with plenty of room to do battle. It’s hard to fathom two warring factions having their camps so close to each other. Maybe I’m missing something. 🙂

Israel is a tiny nation, but you can drive for hours to get to your next stop. In the first week we traversed the northern part and spent the last week in Jerusalem. Dr. G made sure that not a minute was wasted in going from one point to another. We never backtracked. We hit at least 3 sites before lunch and 3 before dinner. Lots of walking up hills, up stairs, and back down again.

Last but not least was the Golan Heights.

When we were getting ready for this trip I really expected it to be canceled. It was at a time that the Syrian War was escalating, Trump had moved the embassy to Jerusalem and proclaimed that Jerusalem was Israel’s capital. There was unrest at the border of the Gaza Strip and when we went to the city of Jerusalem the Temple Mount was closed to all tourists not of Arab descent.

So to stand within spitting distance from the Syrian border (well actually a little further than that) was surreal. Everything was peaceful, no smoke filled skies, no whistling sounds of incoming rockets just a beautiful lake on the other side of a very prominent fence. The white buildings you see is a UN compound. Our Israeli guide however told us before we got off the bus that we were not to take pictures or aim our cameras at the mountain behind us. There was a high security military watch base hidden somewhere on it and they would be watching us.

But I never felt safer. I kept hearing that phrase from tourists who were on the news and I had a hard time believing it, but I guess I just had to experience it myself.

Oh I almost forgot. Remember the first picture with the two straight lines? Those are runways for an Israeli Air Force base that has been built underground. The Tilapia ponds are sitting on top of the base. The motto in Israel should be “Never waste good real estate”. Interesting right?

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