One Life, For His Glory, By His Grace.: Venturing into Genesis Land where Abraham travelled!

9.30am

3 eras of ground on the floor. The ground, the mosaic and the big marble tiles.

So why are we here? Oh, Ancient Bet-She'an is mentioned in the book of Samuel as a city on whose walls the corpses of Kind Saul and his songs were displayed. The city was later destroyed by the Assyrian army and left in ruins for centuries.

During the Roman period, this was the most important of the Ten Cities (Decapolis), and the only one on the west bank of the Jordan River.

Oh no, it's not my powerful karate chop. There was a great earthquake in AD749 which shook the city and destroyed it to its very foundations.

This is the mount of Gilead, beyond the desert behind this mount is Iraq.

Wanna try climbing the mountain? It's afterall much smaller than Megiddo.

Here we are right at the top of the hill.

And you know what, you could shout from the mountain top and people below can hear you clearly!!

"I'll shout it from the mountain top - PRAISE GOD !!

I want the world to know; the Lord of love has come to me,

I want, yes I want, to pass it on.
Pass it on, pass it on!"

12pm

As we travel towards Jerusalem, we passed through Jericho and the road where Jesus healed the man with Leprosy. We also saw the mountains where one of the cliffs of Jericho was regarded as the place of temptation where Jesus went to after he was baptised.

And then here we are at Genesis Land.

Here's the traditional site of the good Samaritan story.

And here we are walking to find Abraham.. would he take us in, in the middle of this desert, to give us a roof over our heads and provide a good lunch to us?

And so we learnt that in the desert, practising hospitality is literally saving lives.

Here's Abraham welcoming us and giving us water to wash our hands (and feet) before we enter his tent!

Hearing his story of how they had travelled from Ur (which is now Iraq) to Haran (which is now Turkey), following the trail of water route, and also at the same time to spread the monotheism --that there's one God. Abraham was the first to believe in One God.

What a sumptuous spread!

Meatball rice!

And some dried fruits to end off the sumptous lunch!

But it wasn't the lunch that amazed me. It was the scenery that mesmorised me.
I stared at the land for a while. You mean that's genesis land? The stories which I've been reading in the Bible. The land laid before my eyes was where those biblical folks set their foot upon? Was that where Abraham walked all those years?

This is not a painting. It's a real picture. Exactly what I saw that day that I had to hold my breath for a while and ask "Is this real?"

Yes it is real.

And it's even more real that we are now ascending up to Jerusalem!!

3pm
We read the Psalms of Ascent from Psalms 121 onwards as the coach takes us up into Jerusalem. We went to the Hebrew University, Mount Scaprus, to have an overview of Jerusalem from the northeastern direction.

And here we are at southwest of Jerusalem overlooking the Dome.

What's all the fuss about the Dome? I wondered (ya, I really didn't do any homework for the trip =p) and thank God for the teachings on the journey.

The Dome is Mount Moriah where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac some 4000 years ago.
In 1 Chronicles 10, David conquered this area and Solomon built the first temple for God here. In 586 BC, the 2nd temple was being rebuilt. Jesus prophesied that the temple will be destroyed and that happened in 70 AD. Today the dome is ruled and administered by Muslims. But hey, our God IS the owner of the Dome and He can choose to let anyone take charge of it.

Daniel 9 tells us that there will be another temple. In order to have sacrifices and offerings, there must be a temple. When and where will it be? And it is said that there will be attempts to put a stop to sacrifices and offerings. So that temple will also be destroyed? When will that be? When the Lord comes? When the Lord comes, will you be prepared? Will I be prepared?