Abraham: Biblical Geographical History by Kelly Durant 2-24-13
Hebrews 11:9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
2. What results do you get when you have 4 Jews counseling together? You get 5 opinions! Ha! When we visited the Holy Land we were privileged to see dozens of ruins that were uncovered, some just a few feet below the dirt, while others were under multiple layers of rock laid one culture on top the other over the past 4 millennia! It has taken multiple thousands of volunteers many decades to unearth all the hundreds of places to see that are in Israel.
When you are in Israel all you can think about is rocks, they cover every mountain, and they shape all the buildings and walls, they cover every sidewalk and every field. No wonder David proclaimed, Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3. How many of you can lift 50 pounds? That was our luggage limit; most of us can lift that much, right? But how would you move a rock that is as heavy as your car: Or even as heavy as 3.000 cars (600 tons)? We often think of the ancients as developing from the caveman stage, but this is not true as ancient man was very intelligent for building and they had many complex ways to quarry and transport massive rocks. The Bible confirms that the sons of Adam started building right away after leaving the Garden of Eden.
Gen 4: 16 Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch.
4. Our history with God’s chosen begins at around 2,000 BC with Abraham. You may not be aware of this but there were people before the 1930’s that disputed that Abraham had never lived because they never uncovered the city hi was from. These doubters claimed that no City named Ur had ever been discovered and so the bible and all the people in it must be a myth. They were wrong! The City of Ur was uncovered in 1930 and it proved that Abraham had migrated a long way up and up and over to Israel. This is a lesson we must learn: Geography proves history which proves the Word of God as true!
5. Ancient man was created intelligent by God. The arch design, for example, was thought to have been developed by the Greeks a few hundred years before Christ but not far from Abraham’s arrival point in Israel they unearthed a gate with an arch and this city was more than 4,000 years old! Since it was one of the first cities in that area, Abraham himself may have passed through here. How amazing is that? Geography confirms history and God’s word is always true! God created man intelligent.
6. Geography and archaeology are revealing to us more and more how the ancients lived, how intelligent they were, how hard working they were, and how they worshiped God, either in truth by the knowledge of Abraham and Moses, or totally misguided by Satan doing human sacrifice and horrors. The art and written history records of the past prove that people were similar to you and me today. They needed to be near a water supply, have food, and shelter. But one thing is disturbingly evident, each culture that existed wanted to dominate totally over the other ones and wipe out all traces of the existence of the one they conquered.
7. Reflecting on Abraham in our land of rocks, there was a place of altar rock on which he was going to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but God stopped him and provided a ram instead and it is here on Mt. Moriah where the Mosque of Omar stands today. The other son of Abraham, Ishmael, being the half-brother of Isaac is today to father of the Arab nations and these two descendants have had family feuds over the land of Israel and the rights to the ownership of that rock alter ever since. I thought it was funny how they each referred to each other as their cousin, but what is not funny is the serious dislike they have had for each other for almost 4,000 years!
8-12. We visited many enormous art decorated churches placed over the holy places where Jesus lived. There is a Catholic Church over the place where Jesus was born Church of the Nativity, one over the Mount of Olives, one where he preached the Sermon on the Mount and more. You might recall that Peter had the name rock and the Catholics confused what Jesus said that he would build his church upon the rock. Matthew 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Jesus spoke this of himself, the cornerstone.
13. All of these rock structures are very impressive, yet they leave you with the feeling that you did not get to appreciate the land how it was when Jesus was here. For example, here is the church on the Mount of Olives. I imagined the olive garden to be several miles square but as you can see here today, it is only the size of a parking lot! They did have a 2,000 year old olive there!
14. In Jerusalem there is fierce competition of religious powers, each one considering that they own where the prophets or where Jesus lived and taught. There are the Jews, the Catholics, The Muslims, The Armenians, and the Greek Orthodox ones. It is almost like they don’t ever like to look at each other. People do not say hi and be friendly as in other places. Yet it is wonderful to contemplate that at least some devoted men from each group of the past wanted to honor where Jesus was by building a structure out of rocks to be a nice place to worship. With all the tourists in and out it is hard to concentrate and worship here though.
15. My opinion is that sometimes the magnificence of buildings can distract a person away from the focus of worshipping a humble Lord that had no place to lay his head. The word even warns us that we do not need a luxurious place to worship and history has proven other cultures just tear them down. Solomon built the temple but as you know it was totally destroyed. Acts 7: 47 But Solomon built Him a house. 48 “However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: 49 ‘Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the Lord, Or what is the place of My rest?
16. One thing we must take into account; the land of Israel started having Holy significance not with temples but with God speaking to Abraham 4,000 years ago and it was his faith that started this land. The land was not started with God commanding a man to build a stone house. God made him the father of the Jews, Arabs, and of Christians. Gen 22: 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
17. The land of Israel as well contains many prophecies of things that happened, and of things happening, like the desert become fertile, Isaiah 35:1[ The Future Glory of Zion ] The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. The Jews of today have made a watering system that has made the country green, how amazing!
18. Israel is the land of things that will happen as well, like the final battle of Armageddon so it all history of God’s people begins in Israel and it all will end there as well. Rev 16:16 And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. You can see this is a lush valley, and it is the breadbasket of Israel producing many fruits and vegetables for exporting.
19. This controversy of who is the son of the promise and who is not is the reason for all the fighting. The Jews believe they have the Torah law to make them Holy, the Arabs believe that the worship of one God, Allah, and their Koran law to make them holy as well. The racial, religious, animosity and discrimination is witnessed very heavily in Israel. It is almost like you can foresee how this heavy clash of worldviews and faith beliefs can culminate into a final battle as the hatred is fierce. The climate amongst the people is usually serious and unfriendly and I pray we as Christians never allow ourselves to become guilty of hatred for the Jews or Arabs as there is hatred today over all the bombs and deaths from the past decades. Historically we have learned that hatred will not prevail only God’s love does. The Canaanites were conquered by the Israelites who were conquered by the Romans who were conquered by the barbarians who were conquered by the Byzantines who were conquered by Arabs who were conquered by the Crusades who were conquered by the Ottomans who got conquered by the British who were overrun by the Palestinians and later in 1948 Israel was established. Empires come and go but only God’s kingdom will last forever! We are commanded to love our enemies just as Jesus did!
20. Each group proclaims their own righteous ness but we have the truth in Jesus and let’s review what Paul says about beliefs, in particular faith and the law. Romans 9: 30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.[n] 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.[o] For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 33 As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”[p]
21. I began telling you about the rocks of Israel and Abraham and his son on a rock and now I finish with the most important rock of Israel, the Cornerstone Jesus Christ! Salvation comes not by the law but by faith in obedience to the rock of Jesus Christ. Both of the cousins in Israel today, and for millennia, have observed with a severe strict discipline their religious statutes, but for 2,000 years all of these observances have been sadly been done in vain and are meaningless without Jesus Christ. All the slavery of the observances of laws and strict diet codes, strict dress codes, prayer codes, and scripture memorization do not bring salvation, only obedience to Jesus does!
Coming back here I feel like I am in a true house of worship where your faith in Jesus is all that matters to God and to you and me! There I was a quest, and as a quest often you do not feel the freedom to worship as you please your mind’s concentration gets drowned out by Catholic chants that echo for 8 seconds.
Today I want to challenge you, do you trust in the old law which began with Moses, with all the religious codes, or are you going to be as the original father of faith, Abraham, which points to us having faith in God’s son?
22. I will leave you with this thought. Cut out of a stone in the side of a mountain was a tomb, dated 2,000 years old that is beside a garden. It is believed to be the very tomb of rich Joseph. When I touched that stone wall on the inside, I had a flash of a vision of Jesus wrapped body there on the stone floor, then I blinked and it was empty again. It was such an unexpected vision that I became emotional and walked out crying.
I cannot explain how seeing a stone tomb can affect a person as it affected me, and I cannot fully explain God’s ways, but one thing I know, the stones cry out in glory to His name! If you want to know that glory, just close your eyes in faith and talk to Him. Let’s pray…
