We're going to continue our studies in the Introduction to Bible Geography, and this is the third and last session of this course. We're up by the Sea of Galilee, and we come to the western shore, to the town of Magdala. This is where Mary Magdalene was from. She was healed of seven demons, but she gets her name from that town. Matthew 15.39 says, Jesus came into the coast of Magdala. So Jesus was there. Apparently He healed her there or somewhere nearby there. And again, we would remind the students that we have keyed this course to the new moody atlas of the Bible. And here we reference page 53, which is a map of the Sea of Galilee. Very good map. It shows the old ports. all the way around the lake which have been discovered in recent years. And then it shows Magdala over here on the west coast. So here we see Mount Arbel towering above Magdala. And that's the Arbel Pass that we looked at where Jesus would come from Nazareth over to Galilee. And this video clip is looking from Magdala and then going south. That's Magdala. Mount Orbel. That's Mount Orbel. And then scanning. That's a very big mountain as you see. And then scanning south. And there is Tiberias. Going out over that point. And that was a Roman city. Existed in Jesus' day, but it was a Roman city. Magdala had a big harbor for its fishing fleet. Today, it's mostly gone. It's silted in. But in Jesus' day, it was 700 meters wide. It's a very big harbor. And the town was famous for its sardine industry. that were fished from the lake, caught in the lake, and then processed there in the town. In 2009, they found the ruins of a large synagogue there in Magdala, dating back to Jesus' time. They know it dates to Jesus' time because they found a coin there with AD 29, dating to AD 29, exactly the time when Jesus was preaching there in that area. Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues all Galilee. So he went to Magdala. He preached in this very synagogue And then on the other side of the lake Is where Jesus healed that the morning act with the gatherings which is mentioned in Matthew 8 mark 5 and Luke chapter 8 and When Jesus cast the demons out of the man, they entered into the herd of pigs which ran down into the sea. And there's only one place on the entire shore of Galilee that fits that description. And we're looking south here toward that place where it runs steeply down all the way to the water. And this is looking at that place from the from the water, from a boat. We hired one day to go all the way around the lake. And that's the only place where the land, the hill runs all the way down to the water. And the water was higher then, but this runs all the way down and it's sloped all the way down to the water here. This is where Jesus preached, where he did his great miracles, especially in Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin, because he cursed those cities for their unbelief. He said, Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago and set clothed ashes. And today those cities sit in ruins still 2,000 years later. Jesus cursed them and they've never been rebuilt. The ruins of Bethsaida, the ruins of Capernaum. Capernaum was a beautiful city right on the water, and it was never rebuilt after Jesus cursed it. And then we come to Nazareth, over to the west of Galilee. There's a good map of this in the moody Bible Atlas page 243 and This of course is where Jesus grew up When Mary and Joseph Just before Jesus was born. They left Nazareth and went down to Bethlehem and he was born there, but he grew up in Nazareth and his own people rejected his preaching and tried to kill him and to throw him off the brow of the city, and this is it. Very steep, you can see how terrible it would be to be thrown off of that cliff. They wanted to kill him. And then Cana, just north of Nazareth, is where Jesus did his first miracles. Turning the water into wine, And all of this is up near the Sea of Galilee. And then we need to know about the Valley of Jezreel. Valley of Jezreel, also called Valley of Megiddo, and in Greek it's called the Plain of Esdralon. But in the Bible it's called the Valley of Megiddo and the Valley of Jezreel. And Moody Atlas, pages 140-141, And 154 has good maps of that valley. It gets its name from the city of Jezreel. And that's where Ahab had his summer palace. And there's some ruins of that palace on the hill of Jezreel today. And this is looking across to the hill of Moreh, across the Jezreel valley. And so here it is on the map of Israel, just south of the Sea of Galilee, the Valley of Jezreel, north of Samaria. And this is a close-up, satellite-type map of the valley. And it gets its name from Jezreel. It also gets its name from the town of Megiddo, right there, Megiddo, right in the center of the valley. And then to the east it meets the Herod Valley. And so to the west is the valley of Jezreel or the valley of Megiddo, and to the right is the Herod Valley to the east. And that gets its name from the spring of Herod where Gideon tested his men before they went to battle the river Kishan runs through part of the valley and flows over north of Mount Carmel into the sea of Mediterranean Sea Kishan River and there's the ancient town of Jezreel where Ahab had his palace and very important valley in Bible history Mount Carmel is over on the west and we know many things happen there and then Shunam is there bow by the hill of Moray Gilboa is just down to the southeast Is Forming that valley Samaritan mountains are further south. And so there it is, Sea of Galilee up north. Nazareth overlooks that valley. The place where they tried to throw Jesus off of the cliff, it looks out over that valley. Mount Tabor is right there by Nazareth. All these things. Hill of Moreh. All these things are mentioned in the Bible many times. And so this photo was taken from the hill of Magedo, looking out to the east, toward Jordan River, and little Taybors over on the left, which is north, and Endor, where Saul met the witch. All these things are right here. Hill of Borre, and the Herod Valley, It's Israel and Mount Geboa. All of that can be seen here. Plain of Megiddo or Valley of Megiddo. It's a major highway through Israel, runs right through there. And that's why there's been so many battles there. Because to come from the north down toward Egypt or anywhere south, you've got to go through the Valley of Megiddo pretty much. And so it's been the scene of many Bible events. Deborah and Barak Defeated the Canaanites out on that valley Judges four judges five and Deborah met Barak up on Mount Tabor That's where they gathered the soldiers Israelite soldiers and the Canaanites were out in the valley with their chariots their mighty armies and and Barak came off of Tabor and came down and God gave him a great victory there. Here's Mount Tabor and that's what they would have seen looking down to the valley of Jezreel where the Canaanites were in their mighty armies and chariots. And Deborah stayed up on the mountain, watched the battle. Here is looking from Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel overlooks the same valley and there's a little table or over there. It's just a little round hill and There's the quichon down in the valley And there's the valley of Jezreel and there's Mount Gilboa just above the word gives just real and That day God gave them a victory by over flooding the quichon and The Kishan over flooded the banks, swept Sisera's army away and made it impossible for him to use his chariots. Usually the Kishan is very small stream or even dry. But sometimes it floods even today. This was January 2013 and the Kishan was in flood stage. Gideon defeated the Midianites out on this valley of Jezreel. The Midianites, they camped over on Mount Moray and Gideon camped over by the Herod Spring. And that's where he tested the soldiers and God only wanted 300 of them. So he would get all of the glory and they would not claim the glory for themselves. And so God sent most of his army home and they were tested here and weeded out here by drinking the water and how they would drink the water. This is what that spring looks like today. And this is also where the Philistines defeated Israel and killed Saul and Jonathan upon Mount Gilboa, but they fought out in the valley. And the night before, this is looking from Mount Gilboa out across the valley of Jezreel. It's really the valley of Herod there, the Herod Valley, but it's the same valley. and he went and the Philistines were gathered over at the hill of Moray at Shunem. Shunem is at the foot of the hill of Moray and he went up around them over to and this is looking from Jezreel across to the hill of Moray and Shunem was down at the foot of that hill that's where the Philistines were And so Saul went out around, around to the east, over to Endor, just across that hill, where the witch was. And he tried to get God to talk to him, and God wouldn't talk to him, so he went to the witch. And they fought the next day, out in the valley of Jezreel. And the Philistines chased him up on the mountain, and that's where they killed Saul and Jonathan, and they took the bodies over to Bethshed, just across the valley. And then, that night, the men of Jabesh came across the Jordan River, and they got Saul's body and his son's bodies from Bethshed, very brave thing, and they took them back to Jebesh and buried them. Here is Bethshan where they put Saul's body on the wall, and looking across to Gilead, across to where Jebesh Gilead was. It's the hills of Gilead over there. And so this is looking west, Across the valley of Jezreel, where so many things happen in the Bible times, and where one of the greatest events of prophecy will yet happen, Armageddon, Jesus returns and the Antichrist armies will be out there. And this is in a hot air balloon we went up in one day from Gilboa, this is looking from Gilboa to Moraine. to the right is Megiddo. So Megiddo. That's Borei on the right. And that's the valley of Megiddo where the Antichrist armies will gather when Jesus comes back. This is also where Jehu killed Jehoram. King Jehoram in Jezreel. at Ahab's palace. Jehu wounded King Azariah there also and he died over at Megiddo. They took him back to Jerusalem. Jehu killed the king of Israel and he killed the king of Judah there in that valley. And this is also where King Josiah was killed by the king of Egypt, Necho. And he should not have gone out there to fight Necho, but he did and he was killed. Many great battles have been fought there even since. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte came from France with his armies to Egypt, and he went up to Megiddo, and he fought the Muslims there in Megiddo. And with 2,000 men, he routed a Turkish army of 25,000 in that valley, but he later lost. and he had to go back to France and he left his army in Egypt to be captured. Napoleon, he was a strange guy. In September 1918, the British had a battle there. Very important battle according to Bible history because that's when they defeated the Turks, Turkish army, the Turks controlled Israel for a hundred years, hundreds of years, and would not let the Jews come back. But the British came in World War I, 1918, defeated the Turks, drove them out, and the British took control of Israel. So many things have happened there, and in the future this is where Armageddon will occur. Armageddon means Hill of Megiddo. And we're standing on that hill as we take this photo. No, that's not true. We are standing in Nazareth there as we take that photo. But this is a view of the plain of Megiddo from Mount Carmel, looking east and panning from south to north. And so there's Gilboa, Mount Moray, Tabor Nazareth is there and Looking up towards about Carmel. That's the whole valley and that is where Armageddon will occur And now we come to Mount Carmel over on the coast another famous place in Bible history and It runs into the Mediterranean Sea. The highest point is 1,724 feet. It's 24 miles long, 5 miles wide, and there it is on the western edge of the Jezreel Valley. This is where Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal First Kings 18 and he killed them down at the Kishon River Took them down to the little river killed him there this is where Elisha the Prophet lived and It's here that the woman of Shunem The Prophet had told her that she would have a child and she had a little boy and that boy died and And so she got on a donkey, I think it was, and raced across the valley to Carmel and told Elijah. And he went back to Shunem and he healed that little boy, raised him from the dead. All of that happened in the valley of Jezreel and Carmel. And below Carmel is the plain of Sharon. the plain of Sharon from Joppa up north to Carmel along the coast and it receives more rain than any other part of Israel and therefore was famous for its fertility agriculture and in Bible prophecy Carmel is Sharon Sharon is used to describe the great prosperity that will come in Christ's kingdom and how everything will grow bountifully and beautifully. Isaiah 35, 1 and 2, the whole land will blossom as Sharon. And so again, you can't understand the Bible unless you understand the geography and what is meant by these various places. The city of Caesarea, as we go further south on the coast, is there, between Carmel and Joppa, Caesarea. And it's mentioned 15 times in the Book of Acts. It was a beautiful Roman city that was built by Herod the Great. There's two Caesareas in the Bible. There's the Caesarea on the coast, and that's why it's called Meritima, Meritimes, by the sea and then there's Caesarea over just south of Mount Hermon Caesarea Philippi and that was not a Jewish city that also was a Roman pagan city like Tiberias and both of those Caesareas were built by Herods and Caesarea Meritima built by Herod the Great It was a gift to Herod from secret Caesar Augustus. And so he named the city Caesarea for Caesar. That's where the Judean governor's headquarters was. Pontius Pilate lived there. It was called Judea Caput, which is Judah's head. Caput is head. And Caesarea. It was one of the most beautiful cities in the Roman Empire. It's famous. And this is looking north across a drawing of the city as it existed in Jesus' day, Paul's day. There was a theater there, which is still there. They rebuilt it. And the circus was there where they had the chariot races. And there was an artificial harbor up there. And there was Herod's palace jutting out into the sea. And his palace looked like this, out into the sea, and in the center was a saltwater pool, natural saltwater pool, carved out of the rock. Caesar, Herod, he was a great builder. The most famous part of that city was its 100-acre man-made harbor. It was called the greatest engineering wonder of its time. And it would look something like this. And this is looking south. Looking south. And there's the circus, which is the chariot race theater. But the natural harbor is there. This is what it looks like today. It's not used for harbor anymore. It's broken down a long time ago, but it was very famous in its day. That's where the Roman 10th Legion was headquartered. Cornelius was a centurion, and that means he commanded a hundred soldiers. And he was the first Gentile that was saved and baptized and he was saved through the preaching of Peter and he lived there in Caesarea Mertima Philip the Evangelist lived there with his family, his four daughters who were prophetesses Acts 21 and when he went up and he led the Ethiopian eunuch Christ up and down, down in the desert south toward Egypt then he came back to the city preaching all along the sea there. And he lived there. And it was in that theater that Herod Agrippa I was eaten of worms because he failed to give God the glory. Acts chapter 12. And he was a grandson of Herod the Great. He was proud just like his grandfather was killed And then Paul, he spent two years in Caesarea. Imprisoned there before they took him to Rome. Imprisoned in Herod's Judgment Hall, somewhere there in Caesarea. And that's where Pontius Pilate lived in the palace. He lived in that palace, Herod's palace, jutting out into the sea. And that's where he lived for ten years as a governor of Judea, a Roman governor. And then we want to think about Gilead, which is over on the eastern side of the Jordan. Gilead, mentioned many times in the Bible. And we need to generally know where it's located. And it's located east of the Jordan and south of the Sea of Galilee. That region there. And it was conquered by the Assyrians under Tiglath-Balazur. Tiglath-Balazur. The Assyrians came in two different waves, and the first wave conquered that northern part of Israel, including Gilead. And then later they came and they captured and destroyed Samaria. And then Bashan is further north on the east side of the Jordan, further north to the east of Sea Galilee and then north up to Mount Hermon. and was famous for its pasture, fat cattle, oak trees. They used those oak trees in the building of ships, the Phoenician ships, strong, pliable wood, oak, it's durable, very hard. And the Bible prophesies of these places, these will belong to Christ, they will belong to Israel in Christ's kingdom, Micah prophesies that let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old So again, you cannot understand the Bible unless you know something about these places and the more you know about these places Not only where they are on the map, but what? What kind of territory it is? What is the climate like what happened there? And the better you can understand the Bible. These places are also mentioned in Jeremiah 50, Obadiah, and Zechariah chapter 10 in the prophets. And we will see those places in Christ's kingdom. And then Samaria, as it comes out from Galilee, Samaria. And that was not a territory in the days of the kings. until the very late part, but it became a territory after the, especially after the Assyrians took it over. But the city of Samaria was the capital of Israel's northern kingdom. So there's the city of Samaria and there's the territory of Samaria, the region. And the city of Samaria, mentioned many times in the Bible because it was the capital of the Northern Kingdom after they split away from Judah. Samaria, this is an artist's drawing of Samaria. It's on the top of a hill. It was purchased by Ahab's father and he built that city. These artistic reconstructions are a fairly new thing because they are based on archaeological evidence. Before there was a lot of archaeology, the last 150 years, the artist would just, whatever they thought it looked like, they would draw it and it was always terribly wrong. But these days we have pretty accurate drawings based on what they've actually found. This is the hill of Samaria today. It's in Muslim territory. You cannot take your Jewish guide over there. We got in a taxi one day with a Muslim and we drove over there. The guide said, well, you're on your own. And we said, okay. We want to see that place." And it was very interesting. But Samaria was destroyed by the Assyrians and repopulated with pagan people from over by Media, way over in Mesopotamia. And so the Jews were taken captive, taken over, scattered around, and then these pagan people, the idolaters from over toward Media Babylon in that area were brought back to Samaria to populated and to live together with the Jews and after that they had mixed religion part Jewish part idolatrous and after that the pure Jews refused to accept them and actually hated them as we see in Jesus day when he met the woman of Samaria at the well there in Shechem. And they were surprised. She was surprised that a Jew would talk to her. Then we come farther south into toward Ephraim, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Very important in Bible history. These are the mountains. They're right by Shechem. And that's where the Jewish tribes pronounced the blessings and the curses after Joshua came into the country. The blessings were spoken from Gerizim in the south, and the curses were spoken from Ebal. There's a map of that on the moody Bible Atlas page 123 and so in the movie moody Atlas, we're giving the page numbers not the map numbers Deuteronomy 1129 speaks of these two mountains and so here we're looking from the town of second. That's where the woman at the well lived and Up to the south was Gerizim and up to the north is he bald air. This is what she would have seen and The modern city, of course, wasn't there, but there was a town there. And it came to pass when the Lord thy God hath brought thee in into the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. And that's what Moses commanded them to do after they went in, and that is what they did. Many things happened at that in that town down below those mountains. That's where Abraham came, when he first came into the land from Haran. And God spoke to him there and said that he would inherit that land. Genesis 12, 7, right there in that place. And later Jacob purchased a field where Joseph would be buried, where Joseph is buried. They brought Joseph back into the land and buried him there. And Simeon and Levi killed the people of Shechem. Dinah went out to see the land, see the people, and she was raped, and her brothers were very angry, and they killed everybody in the town in Shechem right there. And that was a city of refuge. So God made that place a blessing in the days of Israel. It's a place where you could flee and find refuge if you killed somebody by accident. And that's where Joshua made a covenant with the people there. There many things happened. Shechem. Shiloh was where the temple, the tabernacle was set up in Joshua's day. Shiloh. And so just below, just south of Gerizim and Ebal, Shechem, is Shiloh. Ephraim tribe of Ephraim Joshua set the tabernacle there and Hannah came from the south from Ramah up to Shiloh There she prayed and God gave her a baby boy named Samuel Many things happened there and this is the site of Shiloh today Nothing there. It's all ruins but they're excavating it doing a lot of archaeological work there they're finding many things and it's thought that this is where the tabernacle was set up on this place here then you have the Elah Valley and we go into all these places in a lot more detail in Bible times and ancient kingdoms with the powerpoints and the multimedia presentations But Elah Valley, one of my favorite places in Israel, that's where David and Goliath faced off, 14 miles west of Bethlehem. So David came over from Bethlehem that morning. He didn't know what was going to happen. He didn't know that was going to be a famous day in world history and was going to make him famous. His dad told him to go over and take some cheese and things to his older brothers over at the battle and he did and Elah was on the border between Philistia and Judah over on the east is Bethlehem there so that's Elah and so the Philistines that was their territory west of there and they were fighting for that and they wanted to come in and conquer Israel's territory, Judah's territory And so Jesse said unto David his son, take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves. I'm sorry, he didn't take cheese. He took parched corn and loaves of bread. And run to the camp to thy brethren. Oh, he did. Ten cheeses. So all kinds of food for them. And he came across fourteen miles that morning. It was a pretty good walk. And this is what he would have seen, this valley, and Israel was over here on one side, and the Philistines were over on the other side. 1 Samuel 17, 3, the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, and there was a valley between them. And there is that valley. And we know what happened. Goliath got killed that day, and Israel had a great victory. And then, finally we want to just give a glimpse at the major geographical features of Israel. Israel has everything. It's just a small country, very small. But it has everything. It has deserts, and savannas, and forests, and hills, and mountains, rivers, lakes, sea coast, ocean. The land ranges from 9,200 feet above sea level, which is Mount Hermon, down to 1,300 feet below sea level at the Dead Sea. As we've seen, the Dead Sea is in that big trough, probably formed During during the flood or sometime along there was a great upheaval And God was preparing his nation for that God is in control of all of these things The country's largely mountainous There's that Syrian African rift it's called in modern times that runs all the way from the Red Sea up to Way to the north of Israel runs all the way through Israel big Valley trough rift The land was ripped apart at some point And God speaks to the mountains Israel's mostly mountains and God speaks to the mountains in it Ezekiel 36 8 But ye O mountains of Israel Ye shall shoot forth your branches Yield your fruit to my people of Israel for they're at hand to come. Oh That was two thousand four hundred something years ago Five hundred years ago and and God said there They're at hand to come and they did come they came back, but then they were evicted by the Romans and they've come back today, but it's not the fulfillment of this prophecy and The fulfillment of this prophecy is yet to come. And at that time, God will bless the nations and it will be so amazingly fruitful. In the days of Joshua, they went out to spy the land. Joshua was one of them, Joshua and Caleb. And they took two men to bring a bunch of grapes back. Those are some seriously large grapes. What will it be when Christ comes in and God blesses the land in his supernatural way? It will be amazing and that's what God is saying and that is yet to come So here's just a basic over satellite overview And again, this is modern stuff. We didn't have that Even when I was born there was no such thing as satellites And there's Mount Hermon up to the north in Galilee Jordan running down through that valley to the Dead Sea And it's way down below That Dead Sea is way down below Jerusalem And there's the Judea mountains and the Samaria mountains in Gabor Carmel, it's just a tiny nation but that is the topography, but it's all going to be changed when Jesus comes and and uh... the whole the bible describes uh... the mountains becoming a plain and the dead sea will be healed and we don't know all of the changes the amount of olives will split in two when christ returns it will all be changed this is what it looks like today and so as we've said the serious bible student needs to obtain the best tools possible our goal with this course is to whet the student's appetite, to give you a desire to study Bible prophecy and take it seriously. If you do, it will help you a lot and you will benefit from it greatly. I did not understand the importance of this for a long time in my Christian life, even though I was a serious Bible student, always have been. I did not understand the importance of geography very much. I always had some atlases, but, and I used them some, but not anything like I do today, because I did not understand. We need teachers to help us understand these things, and so you need to help others, those of you that are taking this course, help others understand, and you can do that by studying these Geographical places and learning about them and you will get excited about it and you can tell other people the benefit of it These are the three major atlases that we recommend at this time the new moody atlas of the Bible the rose then and now Bible map atlas and The satellite Bible atlas and the rose then and now is not the small they have a small edition It's only about 30 pages but we're talking about the full-blown Bible Atlas that Rose publishes and then online there's the BibleAtlas.org and it has online Atlas that's easy to use, has a lot of excellent features of course there's a lot of resources online and for more graphics, photos, maps and all this type of thing we recommend Bible Times and Ancient Kingdoms and also The new course that we're preparing to publish in the beginning of 2022, which is the Way of Life Pictorial Bible, and it's packed. It has every major event in Bible history, from Genesis to Revelation, and it is packed with detailed maps and graphics and archaeological research and all these things, plus Bible pictures for even children. And so these resources are available. And that is the conclusion to introduction to Bible geography.