Following the Messiah: Episodes 1-5

such a humble beginning his arrival wasn't announced to Kings it wasn't made before large crowds Jesus birth was revealed to men protecting sheep and yet could this have been any more fitting for a man who had become the greatest Shepherd in the world [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're here in Israel it's episode 1 we're trying to focus on the birth and the infancy of Jesus so what are some of the things that we're going to try to go see and visit today well the first thing we're going to go see is down in Bethlehem this is where the traditional location of where Jesus was born of course we know he was born in the city but there's a number of different ideas about exactly where but we're gonna go to one particular place it's called the Church of the Nativity ok so we know from the Gospels that during a Roman census Joseph and Mary come down and when they get down to Bethlehem there's no room for them and what the English version says is an inn we have some images in our imagination that we conjure up and we picture and in the word in the Book of Luke is the word cattle uma which literally means a guest room so when they arrived in Bethlehem there was no room in the guest room okay which makes sense because there were a number of family there who have come for the census that's going to be an interesting sight you know it's we're crossing a border there to go into Bethlehem even though Jerusalem and Bethlehem bar only six miles apart there is a security barrier there between Israel and the West Bank now Luke the historian of the Gospels records that in those days the Kree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered this was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town and Joseph also went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the City of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his betrothed who was with child now the text talks about Mary and Joseph going up even though they're heading south could you explain that the idea here in the scriptures is that you're rising in elevation the city of Nazareth system the Galilean hills and from the Jezreel Valley which is fairly close to sea level you arrive nearly 3,000 feet coming to Jerusalem now we really want to go see the first century steps of the southern wall of the Temple Mount there's some significance there to the birth in the infancy of Jesus there is after Jesus was born his family being a good Jewish family went to Jerusalem to have him dedicated at the and they would have gone up those first century steps that we will visit all right so there's some significant events that take place in the life of Jesus just even at 40 days old Bethlehem is only six miles to our south it fits in the West Bank and so we'll need to travel down there to see all this I had no idea that's what him was that close to Jerusalem I'm really excited to go see the church the nativity [Music] Oh when we got to the Church of negativity Barry explained the the different sized doors and the humility gate or the humility door you have to bow to get underneath it [Music] what we're looking at here is a statue of Jerome who translated the Latin version of the Vulgate [Music] very these arches are incredible they are they're really pretty I'm really glad you brought me here oh this is one of the places I really love to come but as pretty as this church is there's something underneath the ground that they could be interested in [Music] one of the things I appreciate about traveling around Israel is because it helps me to make the Bible stories even more real [Music] [Music] very in Matthew chapter 2 Matthew records that after the birth of Jesus Herod is trying to get him he's threatened by this king that's going to take his kingdom and so in a dream Joseph is told to take Mary take Jesus and flee to Egypt they do that Herod is frustrated that he missed his opportunity and so in Matthew 2:16 when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men he became furious and sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men now that verse is connected to what we're standing next to it is what they found in here are a number of burial chambers and ossuary in which small children very young children were buried there's some first-century things down there that they think this is where a number of the babies that during the first century were buried and this possibly relates to the story in Matthew 2nd chapter that we read about now when my mind goes to that event and I read through the Gospels I think of a larger city I think of hundreds of children thousands of children that would fit that criteria but that's really not what's going on here is it no it's not in fact Bethlehem of modern day is around 60 to 70 thousand people Bethlehem in the 1st century would have just been several hundred and so when we think about all the children who were killed it wasn't in the hundreds or thousands it was really probably in the number of dozens of course any death is one too many to think about what Herod did because he thought Jesus was a competitor to his throne is just it's horrifying it's such a haunting reminder of such a terrible time and all of that was an attempt to get at Jesus as an infant [Music] it was very sobering it's very sobering to think about down in this cave they found the remains of children that Herod massacred trying to kill Jesus as an infant and to think that that was the way things worked I mean Herod the Great ended up killing some of his own children one of his own wives so it wasn't unprecedented for him but that's not something that civilized people - that's not something that's a part of our culture and so it was sobering it really established the reality of the event this isn't something that was imagined it wasn't something that was made up you know with fairy tales and everything else you want to dress things up and get rid of the ugly parts and the Gospels don't do that the Gospels say this is what happened even if it's not pleasant even if you wish it hadn't and that was one of those moments up at the front there are three different religious groups three different churches that maintain the main portion of the church there was one group that came in and they were praying and and doing their morning Mass and then another group came in and they were supposed to clean up and then another group came in and went down and prayed inside of the cave so to watch multiple groups maintain the same space was really I mean it was different that's not anything I've ever seen [Music] Berry was able to take us to the cave where the traditional location of Jesus birth was and the traditional location of where the stone manger was found that he was laid in when we use the phrase a traditional location we mean that this location has a rich heritage going back millennia in some instances to identify a general location a lot of times that means we have a history of people passing down that information from generation to generation we may not know the exact rock or piece of dirt but it's fairly confident to say it's in this general area of this event took place and we should probably add that God never meant for us to worship a piece of ground he never meant for us to worship a specific site what was important for him was what happened at those places all right Jeremy this is what I want to show you we're down in a cave underneath the church the Nativity here in Bethlehem this is the traditional location of where Jesus Christ was born the 14 points around the star represents the generations from Abraham to David David to the exile in the example of Jesus and those 14 generations those are captured for us in Matthew chapter 1 that's right and all day long people are going to be coming down here they're going to be touching it they're going to be kissing it they're going to be leaving prayers down on this little alcove now this marks that spot but there's something else down here we want to see YES on the other side of the cave here there is a little alcove in which they believe the manger said let's go look at that okay Barry we're only about 12 feet away from that 14 pointed star what is it that we're looking at well we read in the Bible that after Jesus was born that they laid him in a manger as you can see here were underneath this little cave this was alcove in the cave here this is the traditional location of where that manger laid this was a fantastic honor to be able to come down here oh yeah absolutely I think one of the misconceptions that most Westerners have it ties back to the idea of Jesus was born in a barn there is no room in the hotel so they went to the stables and he was placed in a wooden trough and just that whole picture and understanding the cultural difference no there was no room in the family guesthouse so they went to this cave where the animals were kept for privacy and seclusion and placed in a stone manger after he was born I think corrects a lot of cultural misunderstanding it's hard to imagine what that must have looked like because so much structure has been built on top of it it's not natural rock they've been burning incense down there for a millennia they have pictures of Mary and Jesus as an infant all over the walls and you have all kinds of decorations and it's just it's hard to imagine but one of the things that did help was it communicated the idea of going into a cave you take these steps down and around a curve and so you have the sense of you're going underground you think about the Son of God coming down to earth and being born in the back of a cave with animals in the seclusion and privacy of the hills of Bethlehem without any trumpeting without any fanfare without any attendants other than his parents and to think about how humble his beginnings was and that was intentional he was willing to choose that and to get a better visual of that drives that point home even more strongly [Music] and we walked up to the sheep they were slowly munching grass coming towards us and we could hear this underlying crunching and munching and there were a couple of them that were wearing the bells so you can hear a couple ringing and we were trying to figure out which one has the bell around its neck there was one that looked to be lame and so he was slowly following all the rest of them and then to see this young boy who barely looks like he's in his teens was leading this flock of dozens of sheep around and it was just really sweet to watch it was very tender one of the things that Luke reports for us in Chapter two is that in the region of Bethlehem the same region that Jesus was born that night there were some Shepherds out in the field with their sheep and as they were tending their flocks an angel came and announced the birth of Jesus and they celebrated and wanted to go meet him it would have looked a lot like this it would have been dark there would have been the bright light and as they rejoiced they would have been excited to know that the Messiah had been born [Music] being out there on that hillside it was so much easier to imagine the night of Jesus birth and to imagine a dark hillside while these Shepherds are putting their sheep down for the night they're resting it's quiet and calm and all of a sudden there's this angelic announcement about the birth of the Messiah and they start worshipping and praising and I've just got that image stuck in my head now and our God actually made a great point when we were out there in the fact that because shepherds are always awake while they're working and because I see other flocks and other Shepherds that the best way during the first entry to carry a message out is through the shepherds and so maybe that was why God chose to send the Angels to the Shepherd's first because they would be able to spread the word spread the good news of the birth of Jesus one of the things coming to Israel does is it helps put into perspective distances I always visualise Bethlehem is just an hour's drive or two hours drive from Jerusalem you know Bethany is so far over here the Mount of Olives was so far over here that's not the case so the distance just from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is six miles six miles that's that's a one-hour walk you know that's less than a one-hour walk if you're jogging or really trying to get it done and so to realize it really wasn't that far from where Joseph's family was to come to the Temple Mount they had already traveled all the way down from Galilee to Bethlehem to get from Bethlehem to the Temple Mount with nothing and and to be here in person and to have made that trip puts that in perspective and I think also you get an appreciation for not only distance but altitude one of my favorite verses in the Bible is from the Luke chapter 19 in which it says and Jesus after finishing his conversation with people in Jericho it says he went up to Jerusalem but what does that mean it's a simple phrase but what we learn is just within that 15 miles you go up nearly 3,500 feet in elevation your ears are popping and all kind of things as you go up the hill gives you a greater appreciation for exactly what Jesus went through as he went up the mountain the historian Luke records for us over in Chapter two when the time came for the purification according to the law of Moses they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as is written a law of the Lord every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord now we are standing right next to the Temple Mount on a Herodian a first century Road this is the area that they would have come to present Jesus they would have they would have come to Jerusalem to present in the temple so they've come down from Galilee because of the census they stopped and Bethlehem Mary gives birth there and then they bring Jesus to the Temple Mount and we're standing in the shade of the Temple Mount right now so this is a totally different field than what they were used to back home up in Galilee a slower pace that would have been more calm more rustic fewer people and then they come to the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem and this would really be the big city yeah they have really come to the big city up in Galilee you have farms and you have the of course the lake and all the serenity that's left there but when they came here this would have been an eye-opening experience for any Jewish people coming from the other one and we know that they made annual trips down to Jerusalem but this would have been a special trip it would have been for the family yes you know but the birth of their firstborn they're coming to the temple to dedicate their son they would have been purchasing some some small turtledoves or something from the shops along the way here how do we know that this is the first century road what identifies it is that well this road was uncovered by archaeologists about just a couple of decades ago this road is very typical of roads at that time it has the same look and feel that other Herodian roads do as you'll notice there are some holes in the road that is cause for two reasons one is it's just as 2,000 years old okay so it is just sunk in a little bit and the other has to do with all these big boulders that are here behind us we know that in 70 AD the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and when they did they burn the temple and burned a lot of the things up there in doing so they pushed a number of the rocks off of the temple and they landed on this road and that caused a lot of damage to this when there is huge I mean those aren't even potholes I mean you can fit a car yes I did some of the large hole now when they uncovered the road several decades ago to help us understand the size and the weight of those stones they left the street the way it was they did and it helps us to appreciate just how destructive the Roma's word of this city at that time there are layers of history to walking on this for centuries Street we have rubble from the destruction of the Temple Mount in 70 AD by the Romans to the side you see the shops that helps you visualize what was going on around the Temple Mount and of course we know that Jesus was frustrated by that when he went there as an adult the pavement the stone pavers are huge they're huge I mean everything that Herod did was on such a massive scale and to see the finesse and the beauty and the scale and just everything was overwhelming being able to walk on that Herodian Street knowing it's the exact same Street that many people in the first century would have walked on that's just all inspiring because you realize that you are walking and you're walking through history and when we're there Barry is trying to reconstruct things for us so while we're looking at the wall and see just a few stones jutting out of it he's trying to explain there was this arch that came out and then there were some steps that led down to it and so he's trying to fill in the gaps and and you're trying to picture in your mind's eye what this looked like complete and he does a great job at that to get the idea of the magnitude of what we're looking at there there is a rock in that wall under the ground you can you can go see that it's over 500 tons heavy 45 feet long and you can see other stones a little bit smaller than that but still hundreds of tons and they make up the blocks of this western wall of the temple and so as you're walking along this first century Herodian Street Mary and Joseph would have been seeing that you know is it was a source of pride for the Jews to have such a glorious Temple Mount when we look at the Temple Mount when we look at the shops and the stones that make up those structures there's something unique that makes them Herodian as well - what is that King Herod not only built big things he wanted to make sure it looks good and if you look at a lot of the stones here on the Temple Mount in the western wall and even on these shops behind it not only are they perfectly cut and perfectly set in place but they all have little edging around them I mean some of the things that people have pointed out is that you can't even slip a piece of paper even now 2,000 years later you can't hit a piece of paper into some of those crafts that's correct each one of these stones was specifically cut for the position it's located so that's amazing from a design engineering architectural standpoint that they were able to do something so so refined 2,000 years ago that's right many of these stones were cut from quarries a few miles north of Jerusalem so it's not even like they were cutting the stones here and could compare them they had to cut them up there and then bring them down and then chisel them into place to make sure their executive outside didn't slaughter man so coming from Bethlehem they would have walked down this Herodian first century Street they would have gone around the corner here to the first century steps and entered the Temple Mount that way to present him to the Louvre that's exactly right it would have been a lifetime moment for them that would have stuck with them for the rest of their lives I remember how excited I was at the birth of every single one of my children and I remember how excited I was to introduce them to family this is their name everything that went along with introducing a new life a new family member and to stand on that Herodian street at this immense moment for this young couple this birth of this extra special child that Joseph has chosen to take on as his own and to think about going there to dedicate him just as a father I think about it from that perspective and being there on the Herodian Street really helped me do that in this episode of following the Messiah we've been to several different places talking about the birth of Jesus we've talked about Mary and Joseph coming down for the census they go to Bethlehem we went to the Church of the Nativity we went over to the Temple Mount to talk about his dedication there's something else that we need to focus in on though in Luke chapter 1 Luke records for us the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist to his father Zechariah in that same chapter the announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus to his mother and in both of those instances each of the parents responds in a similar way each one is shocked by the angel appearing to them each one is afraid the angel encourages each one to not be afraid but to believe and to respond Zachariah did not but Mary did the challenge for us is to figure out how we're going to respond to the birth of Jesus are we going to trust the Gospel accounts are we going to trust them as reliable are we going to choose to believe in the miraculous birth of Jesus or not we hope that during this episode we've helped to increase the possibility that you two would choose to believe in the gospel and then the miraculous birth of Jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] can anything good come out of Nazareth those words show the questionable local reputation of the small village but God had a plan and that little town was home to God's greatest gift [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] very in this episode we're wanting to focus more on the childhood the young years of Jesus so we're wanting to get back up to Nazareth you know over in Matthew chapter 2 it explains when they make that move that Herod died and behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying rise take the child and his mother and go to the Land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead and he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the Land of Israel but when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod he was afraid to go there and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled he shall be called a Nazarene now we're not going to be able to go down to Egypt that's not possible this time but we do want to get up to Nazareth what can we go to see something that would have been like what Jesus saw luckily for us they have created a first century replica village in Nazareth complete with buildings and people and animals and kind of get an idea of what it would look like here I would love to go see it's a great place to go okay so we want to go up we want to go see Nazareth village but we also have recorded for us that during the childhood of Jesus especially around his 12th year that there was a trip his family made from their hometown of Nazareth back down to Jerusalem to go to the temple and it was in that instance where he gets left behind and his family actually leaves town and they end up realizing he's not here and they end up interacting with Jesus so we want to talk a little bit about what that would have been like we will any good Jewish family would have been following the law and the law required that the family come to Jerusalem three times a year for the feast and that's exactly what we have recorded for us and Luke the second chapter now how far are we going to go from from Jerusalem up to Nazareth how far is that oh there's probably about 60 miles how long will it take us to travel that well for us in the car we can do it in actually a couple hours for them it would have taken nearly a week nearly a week to go just one way so two weeks for the round-trip right so I'm really excited to go check out this first century replica city of Nazareth oh it's a beautiful place and I think you'll you'll enjoy your visit [Music] [Music] we're in Nazareth village here in Nazareth and there's just a lot to see you're right about that I really enjoy coming natural village because it gives you an insight of what cities and towns would have look like you're in the first century modern-day Nazareth is a huge City it has about 70,000 people and ancient Nazareth sat in a little bowl in the Galilean Hill a very small town during the time of Jesus and being able to go to Nazareth village helps you understand a little bit more about what the city and the buildings and everything would have looked like and it's really it's very secluded it's on the side of a hill and to walk into the town they have trees all around the lower sides for the most part you feel like you've walked into a time warp because you can look around and as you look around it's like modern-day Nazareth disappears which i think is just it's brilliant it really helps maintain the atmosphere and the mood and I just I really appreciate how they put that together right every time I come to Israel I always go to Nazareth village because it teaches you so many lessons about the first century the first thing that we come to is Nazareth village is a threshing area where they have a donkey and he's got a wooden apparatus behind him threshing out grain and freshly not wheat walking in a circle what they would do is they would bring the wheat in after the harvest put it around here and they'd put a threshing floor back behind a donkey they were laded around it would Thresh the wheat so that it would pull out the grain from the weak then it would be taken over here and ground into a meal that would be used and for bread it's fantastic being here at Nazareth village and be able to see things like this one of the things I liked about coming here is that it brings first century Nazareth to the current age and we can come around here and we can see these things how they operate during the time of Christ they had several sheep they had a couple of lambs you know they're sticking their noses out through the gate and trying to get really close and touch them and talk to them very calm animals we pass by there to come to a replica first century tomb and you see the circular stone that would have been rolled in front of the opening climbing into the the replica tomb it's hard to describe you know you're walking down into this small little cavernous space this opening with some niches in the back and to think about Christ's body being laid and something like that and then having the stone rolled away without anyone helping except for the angels and then looking from the inside out is something that we just we don't think about very often what would Christ have seen for the very first time as he's looking out after the resurrection so it's just all those thoughts go through my head when I'm stepping through that doorway one of the things I appreciate coming natural village is being able to see the character actors there in their first century outfit doing first century activities seeing that helps you appreciate so many of the verses in the Bible so much more when we walk into the carpenter shop I just I have a special attachment to that woodworking is something that I do for a hobby back at my house and to see the kind of tools that Jesus would have used that Joseph would have trained him in using was just it was special so we are at Joseph's carpentry shop so first century replicas of what Jesus would have been doing with his father and some of the tools so we have the drill can we try the drill yeah okay [Music] so this is supposed to be a first-century drill and he was going a whole lot faster but it's spinning how long for you told two minutes five minutes oh man yeah I prefer my cordless at home that is really cool okay yeah okay make it look easy you make it look easy there we go you do it better Joseph thank you so much - I appreciate it - see what that would have looked like to reach up and touch that that was special it was just it was a neat thing for me to connect with how long did he say it would take I think you said about five six seven minutes to do one right I'd be there a long time making one of the pieces of furniture the head skater the last couple times I visited he's been working on the same ladder and so I guess eventually he'll get finished with it but who knows I'm not a very efficient guy no no it's very visual but I'm that guarantee when he gets finished it'll be a very nice very nice ladder so he's grinding using a mortar and a pestle so what is this rosemary it's rosemary and you're grinding it now what would you use that for [Music] so you use it to flavor your food okay so it's pulverizing that herb it smells amazing very fragrant thank you so when we walk into the weavers house she's working on this rug and she's she's finishing it up I mean she's really wrapping up the bottom and the tassels are getting made and she took the time to explain the different yarns that she has how she made the yarn from the wool in the first place and in the processes that she uses to dye the wool so would you boil it yes okay with dry sand we're going to the water and after that to take all the fruits of angelitos when the water is the wall you put the world because it's very hot the wool will shrink okay this color from grass everything degrees from the lives of their decree okay these are dancers from overseas they're brown the beige and the Wat so that's undyed yeah okay yeah and this is some spice wielded for our community Asura yes yes and from walnuts king the brown okay and what makes the blue now I understood these are reality collage yes this is Rios's from Fisher kind of snails you crush it and it gives you one drop of ink to dine one kilo you need more than thousand smells just one kilo you need more than a thousand Yale to give a color yeah and when you appreciate you needed to keep them alive Wow and you put salt with the slam yes you different color under the Sun I do a different color so very expensive whoa what just reality colors as the king and the priest was getting too sick and you know the equation in the Bible about it once you are stealing the purple jelly the area and the Buick mentioned also in the Old Testament about the prayer shell of the pig oh okay that's right yes that's right very good definitely thank you you know this comes to it's easy to walk away with the mistaken idea that older civilizations were somehow behind us or lesser than us to watch her work and to see what she does how much she's putting into every single thing I mean these people were brilliant and it may have taken them longer to do things like that but the fact that they were able to figure out how and get the process down without some of the mechanical helps that we have today just hints at how brilliant they work [Music] [Music] you we're inside the only first century synagogue replicas in the country and it's an amazing place to be you see the multi tiered seating system around the perimeter so everyone will be facing each other you see the heart-shaped columns in the corner there are seven columns in this particular replica and when you come around opposite the front door you've got this area where someone would have been presenting we're speaking to those who came to the assembly now this table setup would not necessarily have been there but for prop usage it's great to understand this is where the speaker or the reader would have been so off to my left in the corner here is a doorway that goes to a storage chamber they would have had jars holding their sacred writing on a scroll so when it says that Jesus read from Isaiah that would have come out of the jar out of the storage room that he would have been reading to those who were gathered here this just gives you a great sense of where Jesus would have learned where Jesus would have taught where Jesus would have gathered with folks from his hometown of Nazareth walking into the completed first century synagogue is a it's a special moment to visualize Jesus standing and teaching and interacting with crowds as a preacher and teacher is just astounding I'm really struggling with how to wrap up our experience at Nazareth village there are things I want to see more of there are things I want to spend more time with I appreciate the time we were there but it wasn't nearly long enough I want to come back [Music] today we went down to the marketplace in the old city of Jerusalem Jeremy we're in this Muslim quarter of the old city we're in the midst of a marketplace here a busy marketplace yeah very busy I'm get all kind of fruits and vegetables over here got flowers over here the marketplace is really the heart of the city I mean especially old Jerusalem you come here to get anything you come here to get your produce your precious metals your clothes it's like a huge bazaar it really is and I love coming here the old city has such personality it really is really is exciting to come walking through the marketplace in the old city is unlike any other shopping expedition I've gone on it's not like going through an outlet store in the u.s. it's not like going to an enclosed mall with escalators and everything is pristine and clean and glass you're passing shops made out of stones that they back centuries sometimes millennia they're rough and there's texture to them and artifacts shop on one side you turn the corner and there's a butcher on the other side with things hanging in the window there's just there's nothing else like it you're going through there and people are coming and going and when we talk about well I'm going to go to the grocery store I'm going to go to the market in in the West in the US we're talking about a large big-box store with huge aisles and lots of room and tons of space but that's not the way this works you have vendors selling out of these small little hole in the walls all the way down these streets and they're displaying their wares along the way just bright colors a lot of salesmanship going on a lot of haggling going on almost everything is negotiable you know the first question you ask is - how much and let him for out a price and then go back and forth and you kind of have to have an idea of what something ought to go for before you go in and it's just it's a neat place to go I don't really enjoy big cities I'm more of a country person I'd much rather stay in the country have the wide-open spaces but I love the old city of Jerusalem it's just a maze of alleyways and small roads and hundreds if not thousands of little shops every ten feet there's new little shops on every side there are people selling everything this is not just a tourist place people live there and so this is where they shop for fruits and vegetables and ten shoes and clothes and eyeglasses and spices one of the places where we stopped going through there was one of the spice shop you knew that you were getting close just because of the aroma in the air about 200 yards away you could smell the spices the wonderful plays of style [Music] some of their spices are combined you know for a specific food so over here on the right we've got one that's for a falafel but it's a combined spice there are multiple spices than that or one for meat further up there's some for Cambodian flavor and we've got coriander right here cinnamon right here and a bunch of different curries schwarmann I mean it's just it's beautiful and the colors are vibrant and you can smell everything from so far away the old city has so much personality to it it's divided into four quarters the Jewish quarter the Muslim Quarter the Christian quarter and the Armenian Quarter and each of those four quarters are completely different places and as you're walking from one quarter to another you immediately notice that I'm in a different area now and to some degree that would have been there in the first century as Jesus was walking in downtown Jerusalem or as he was walking around the Temple Mount he would have had vendors you would have had shops you would have had stalls there are examples of that at the first century Street by the Temple Mount and so you'd have that kind of flavor going on and it's been preserved that's still the way they do things we read about that in the Bible of course when any Jewish family came to Jerusalem especially around feast time or if they had a special dedication they needed to perform on behalf of their family they would need to go to some sort of marketplace to purchase doves or a goat or some sort of sacrifice and so there are all kind of things there [Music] very one of the times that Jesus family came down to Jerusalem we're told they came down annually for the Passover Luke tells us that his parents went to Jerusalem every year the Feast of the Passover and when he was twelve years old they went up according to custom and when the feast was ended as they were returning the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem his parents didn't know it you know they're on the way home they don't realize that Jesus isn't with their group and they have to come back and find them it takes him three days and they find him in the Temple Mount interacting with teachers so where we're standing right now we're standing on the southern steps of the Temple Mount and so the Jews of that time when they came to Jerusalem they would have come up these steps into the temple so they could take care of what they need to do here okay so these steps that we're standing on our first century steps we're also facing the southern wall of the Temple Mount actually in this corner they're the remains of the double gable gate right it's been blocked off it's not in use we can actually only see about half of that former gate right there's later period buildings that have blocked a lot of it but that would have been one of the entrance points one of the two southern entrance point right into the Temple Mount to imagine the events of Luke chapter 2 throngs of people coming to Jerusalem from Passover Jesus and his family coming south from Galilee they would have been accessing the Temple Mount they would have been sacrificing there would have been teaching going on scribes and rabbis and Jesus was interacting with those folks that's right he was impressing the teachers he was there for multiple days and when Mary and Joseph finally interact with him and find him he explains that the reason he stayed behind was to do his father's business that's correct that would all taken place up here on the Temple Mount you'll hear us say a lot this was the traditional location you'll hear us say it was somewhere in this area but there were two primary entrances into the Temple Mount some think one was used for entrance and one was used for an exit that's even better for us because that's easy to say Jesus used these steps Jesus went to the Temple Mount on an annual basis his family went there for Passover Jesus walked on step and it's thrilling to think about that and confidently say that now what do you think about Jesus and his parents not realising that he was gone for so long I mean would people joke around about leaving their kids at the church building and five minutes later going wait a minute we have an empty seat but for a family to be traveling and not realized that for so long what do we make of that as they were going back to Galilee there would've been a large group of people it would have been easy for them to assume that Jesus was probably with other family members and they got halfway up the road you know and realized oh no he's not here they would have thought something along the lines of you know Jesus is with uncle so-and-so or with aunt so-and-so and after tracking that down they realized wait a minute Jesus is not with uncle or aunt he's back in Jerusalem he was they found him here in the temple talking to the priests and the scribes that's right so you have a twelve-year-old boy interacting with these these men that have made it their life's work to understand the law to understand the rabbinical teachings and this twelve year old boy is interacting with them astounding the people that are listening to him and of course when when his family finds him Jesus makes the statement that he has to be about his father's business and making reference to his Heavenly Father Jesus understands what he's about and what his mission is even though he's a child that's exactly right and I think it's so interesting how Mary approaches a lot of these things about Jesus she sees things like that and stores them in her heart she knows there's something special about this child as a parent I think about how I would have felt to realize I left my mine as erine son I left in Jerusalem and then you couldn't find him for three days it took you three days to find him and then when you finally do there isn't this I'm so sorry mom and dad there wasn't any of that there was just this very calm I needed to be here doing what I was sent to do I initially probably would have been taking a little aback by that but they obviously took that to heart and Luke records that for us to help us understand that even at 12 years old Jesus understood something about himself and his mission in this episode of following the Messiah we've been talking about the childhood and early years of Jesus culminating with his 12 year old trip for the Passover down to Jerusalem in the Temple Mount now all of these stops that we've made along the way are like bread crumbs we're following the trail all of these things hints at his identity as the son of God the one who came to be the Messiah we know especially at that Temple Mount visit that his mother saved up that trip in her heart that everything that had happened her conversation Jesus saying he must be about his father's business that was just one more piece of the puzzle for her to figuring out who Jesus was and what he was about now if those things were special to Mary and the Gospel writers thought they were significant enough to record them for us then we have to pay special attention to those things as well those things help us understand who Jesus is [Music] [Applause] [Music] we all have our wilderness we think our temptation is too much to handle we give in to sin and feel alone jesus knows our weakness he stood face to face with Satan and through the struggle he stood up and said no [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] very in this episode we're wanting to talk about Jesus and his baptism and his temptation in the wilderness now we have both of those events recorded for us in Matthew Matthew chapter 3 we have the baptism by John down by the Jordan and then in chapter 4 Jesus has led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil what we want to do is we want to go to places that would be close to where Jesus was baptized and where Jesus would have gone into the wilderness to be tempted for those forty days what are our options to be able to see that well with regards to the baptism there's actually a couple places where we're going to go okay I want to first take you to yard Aneke which is a site just south of the Sea of Galilee we want to go here because the Jordan River is much more attractive there it looks much more like what it would have looked like down here at the traditional baptismal site the second location that we will also visit and this is the more traditional location we hear about John the Baptist baptizing at Bethany beyond the Jordan and it would have been in this area so this is the better place for where Jesus would have been baptized in Matthew chapter 4 when matthew records for us that after the baptism the spirit led him into the wilderness what wilderness are we able to go see well we're going to be looking at the wilderness of judea and this was most likely the location where he was during this time when I picture wilderness I pictured something barren desolate large sand dunes people aren't around for miles I mean is that what we're going to go look at well you're partially correct it is very dry is very barren but it has mountains and valleys it's actually in my opinion one of the prettiest places in the entire land I just I have a hard time visualizing that and what you're describing is beautiful I can't wait to go and see that for myself [Music] we're standing on the Jordan River where exactly are we where the site called yard and eat is just south of the Sea of Galilee a number of people use this where they come to be baptized why are we coming to this spot on the Jordan River as opposed to closer to the Judean wilderness and where the traditional baptismal site is well that's because the Jordan River for the most part is a boundary between two countries it's between the countries of Israel the West Bank and Jordan and so that areas is politically and militarily sensitive and in comparing the two places you've explained that the water level here is higher the river is a little bit wider but when you get further south it's lower it's narrower than even it was during Jesus time why is that mostly just because of population growth in Israel and the West Bank and in Jordan the population has grown significantly over the last 100 years and they need that water they need for agriculture they need to water their cattle they need it for consumption because of that water is not making it into the tributaries which lead to the Jordan River so by the time the Jordan River flows all the way from here to the Dead Sea it's just much lower and the flow is much slower when we get down there you'll notice that it's probably twelve or fifteen feet wide at the widest during Jesus time it was at least this wide if not maybe a little bit wider so we're in the New Testament do we read about Jesus being at the Jordan River well it's referred to a number of times in Matthew of course he tells us that Jesus left Galilee and went down to the south to Jordan to be baptized but in Luke 3 we read now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized in praying the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him and bodily form like a dove and a voice came from heaven you are my beloved son with you I am well pleased so what Luke record for us is Jesus traveling from up here in the Galilee region down to his cousin John the Baptist he's preparing the way for the kingdom of God and Jesus comes to him to baptized now there are several things that John says if he interacts with Jesus at that point one of them is I need to be baptized by you what are you doing coming to me right and Jesus explains that he needs to fulfill all righteousness and John consents and baptizes him and both in Matthews account and here in Luke we have this spirit descending on him like a dove verifying something for John I mean he was looking for that event to confirm something about the identity of Jesus this wasn't just his cousin this was someone special at one point John looks at him and says behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world right that baptism marked a pivotal moment which is just amazing to visualize there would have been crowds of people all the way around as people were trying to get to John's as he's speaking to them as he's baptizing them so all these people would have watched this event unfold as he baptized Jesus from Nazareth now we're going to go further south closer to the traditional site where he would have been baptized by John that's right that site is about 60 miles south of here just north of the Dead Sea with talking to some of our sources they encouraged us to go in with a smaller footprint that's right that location is on a boundary and it's also in a militarily controlled zone so we're still allowed to go sure it's just it's going to be different than what we've been doing so far [Music] yeah Matt it should pick you both a good life but the Trump button is the power button but it's on right now I've got a full battery it's we're going to be on time yeah we're going to change what any but all you do is push that top button it'll start recording okay a whole drive down they've been talking about the complicated nature the political situation the religious situation and all of that it's sensitive and it's delicate and you need to be respectful let's see we are so we're recording the guy's just gave me a brief tutorial on using the GoPro we're at the southern baptismal site we are and we're holding a GoPro which we have not done at all during any of these episodes so why are we doing this well we're doing this because this is a military location and so we want to be respectful of that yeah we've left a number of our bigger cameras in the bus basically look like tourists so I can do that it's very hot down here we're down in the bottom of the Jordan Rift Valley yeah and it's probably close to 100 degrees today very good it's warm I mean we've got this fence behind us we've got this danger mind sign on the fence behind us obviously they haven't totally cleared that area and we're at a tourist stop we are so we've seen this a couple different times yes let's head on down to the water okay okay so we're going to step down several steps to get close to the railing so we're coming up on the Jordan River which we set up north looks different than what we saw tell us what we're seeing all right what we've got here is the Jordan River behind us as we've mentioned the Jordan River is much smaller here very stagnant very stagnant barely flowing at all they will have at the end of the writing system they'll have water come through here yeah but most of the years looks just like this not near as wide as we would imagine it to be it's probably only 15 feet wide right through here we were about two miles north of the northern end of the Dead Sea okay now what's on the other side of the river here well you see a number of churches and everything on the other side is the country of Jordan we read in the scriptures that John was baptizing at Bethany beyond the Jordan right and so what we're doing is visiting the baptismal site from the Israeli side yeah but in reality Jesus was probably baptized a few hundred yards on the other side over here the scripture tells that John was baptizing at Bethany beyond the Jordan which is a location just probably a quarter mile or so to the east of the Jordan River at this spot but we can't go beyond the Jordan we're on the Israeli side as it's important Jordan is to our east about halfway across the river right behind us you can see that golden dome that golden dome is in Jordan we're standing on the border of Israel and Jordan that's why this is a military zone right you've got Jordanian soldiers kind of guarding their side on over there you've got Israeli soldiers kind of guarding this side over here which is the reason we're seeing these barbed wire fences occasionally a soldier so we're just trying to be respectful all of that that's that's why there's a little bit different that's right even though it's not exactly where Jesus was baptized it's the traditional basis Masai tribal visit it's the traditional site and I believe this is a fairly close location okay I mean it was probably just within a half mile or so of here over there on the other side yeah of the river let's just take another second to walk around and see what we can see maybe we walk down to the water that'd be great let me just look at how murky that water is yeah the water doesn't move very much through here you've barely got a ripple in the water it's a lot different when you visualize this and then compare that to singing on Jordan's stormy banks Ifans yeah this is much different than where we were yard in neat garden II was a much much cleaner place much more representative of what it looked like during the time of Jesus yeah from a biblical point of view Jesus comes to be baptized by John the Baptist and Bethany beyond the Jordan right he comes up out of the water the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove John hears a voice from heaven saying this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased and then from that point Satan leads him into the wilderness the Judean wilderness to be tempted he's tempted for forty days so I think from here we're going to wrap up and the plan is for you to take us to some wilderness to get a sense of what that would have looked like and what that would felt like the Judean wilderness literally starts just five or six miles to our west all right the baptismal site of Jesus is right next to the Judean wilderness yeah we're in the bottom of the Jordan Rift Valley that runs all the way from the north to the south the Dead Sea is literally two miles behind us imagine Jesus being here with John the Baptist quarter mile wide Jordan River throngs of people waiting to be baptized and he goes from that scene into this barren desolate dry hot dusty space and we're about to see that transition that's where we're going next [Music] Barry what are we doing up here well I wanted you to experience the wilderness we read in mark 1 immediately after the baptism of Jesus it says the spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan and he was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him now we're in the wilderness of Judea this is exactly the type of place where Jesus would have been when this event happened and of course today the day we went is tremendously hot I think it was probably near 100 degrees even right now I can feel the heat radiating through the soles of my shoes burning and scalding them I just hide it really well ok being out here and seeing this I can really imagine Jesus being in this space for 40 days the Sun beating down on him no food no water and during that period of time Satan is tempting him trying to get him to take shortcuts trying to give him ways out of fulfilling his purpose for coming to Earth one of the things he tempts him with is you've been without food for so long turn some of these stones into bread right as you can see there are plenty of stones around here to do that there are and for Jesus to be offered that shortcut you know you don't have to get back to civilization you don't have to get back to people you can satisfy your hunger right here the Bible describes Satan as cunning and he uses opportune moments to tempt us and he obviously did that in this instance Jesus was hot he was thirsty he was hungry he was alone and for 40 days Jesus is being tempted by Satan and so it was just it was wise on Satan's part it was crafty on Satan's part but Jesus didn't give it when not only was she just out there for 40 days but he was out there also for 40 nights - during the time Jesus lived it would have been complete darkness with the exception of the moon and stars and to be out there alone I think during that time and to be considering all the things that not only the devil was tempting him with but just the environment itself would have been very difficult to handle I know growing up I had a misconception of what the word world this means I always thought it was dry and arid like it is here but I always thought it is flat sandy like kind of a desert back in the United States but it's really not it's mountainous it's actually really beautiful but it's completely different than what you normally have in your minds well and it mentions there were animals and we've seen some of those since being here being in this space helps us visualize that absolutely I really appreciate you taking me to I think one of the things that biblical students need to connect a couple of dots they need to connect when they think about the temptation of Jesus is that Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness and so just like Jesus was forty days in the wilderness the children of Israel had been 40 years in the wilderness and had consistently fallen short of God's standards and expectations and desires and so Jesus comes and as he perfects all righteousness he goes through this 40-day this shortened version of being in the wilderness and he does it perfectly he never once gives in he never once failed God and it is one of the events that helps demonstrate that he's able to be our sinless sacrifice [Music] we've come from the Judean wilderness where Jesus went out he was led by the devil to be tempted in the wilderness and during that temptation one of the places that he takes him is here to the Temple Mount now specifically Matthew records that the devil took him to the holy city set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him if you are the son of God throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone and jesus replied again it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test in my mind's eye when I hear he took him to the pinnacle of the temple I think like the peak of a Western roof but what you've been explaining is that's not exactly what we should be picturing what should we be pictured we use the word pinnacle as meaning table right that's not necessarily the way it's used here most likely the pinnacle the temple was referring to the southeast corner of the Temple Mount there's a place here that would allow the devil to take Jesus he was been able to look down over the Kidron Valley and tempt him to throw himself off there the fall there would have been several hundred feet the Kidron Valley actually has filled in a good bit over the centuries and so it would have been much deeper at that time well in one of the things to think about when he's taken him to that part of the temple and asking him to throw himself off he's tempting him and it's a unique type of temptation what he's offering Jesus is this very public dramatic display that if he were to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple down into the Kidron Valley and God were to catch him up but everyone would have recognized him for who he was he's he's trying to offer him a short cut a short cut from across a shortcut from the betrayal from the beating instead he's trying to offer him a glorious way a dramatic way a safe way to prove who he is as a he decides not to test god and he's not going to give in to that temptation to appeal to his pride one of the things that I've noticed standing here is in front of us we're looking at the pinnacle of the Temple Mount we've got the Oh fell in front of us and then behind us we've got traffic whizzing by and tour buses and cars and mopeds is these people are driving past all of this every single day every single day and often joke that David and Solomon when they originally designed the city didn't account for all the traffic that would be coming through here 3,000 years later it have been nice if they had done that there's a lot of traffic to come through these wonderful places that are so rich in history [Music] in this episode of following the Messiah we've focused on the baptism and the temptation of Jesus and the Judean wilderness now over in Hebrews the Hebrew writer explains that Jesus is able to sympathize with us in our weakness because while in the flesh he was tempted just like us yet without sin Jesus had to be sinless in order to become our sacrificial lamb so when we see him go through these moments where he completes all forms of righteousness by being baptized by John or when he goes into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days and never succumbs to the temptations of Satan we see him successfully become the sacrificial lamb that every single one of us so desperately needs [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Jesus chose 12 men they weren't Kings they weren't priests they were ordinary average men but he knew these twelve would serve a special purpose on the kingdom of heaven Jesus saw their potential fishermen a tax collector a zealot men with ordinary jobs who would become the Twelve Apostles [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Barry we've talked about a lot of events in the life of Jesus we've talked about his birth his infancy his childhood but over in mark chapter 1 the next phase of his life and ministry starts mark chapter 1 verse 16 it says that passing alongside the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and Jesus said to them follow me and I will make you become fishers of men and of course he calls a couple of other men from there to become followers of him where can we go to see places connected to those events all those events took place in the region of Galilee and so I'd like to take you to some of those places there's a Roman Road that I have read is still exposed the stretches from Nazareth to Capernaum I've never been there and I don't really actually try to find it next I'd like to take you out on the Sea of Galilee a boat ride out there will help reinforce a lot of these places in your mind Capernaum is another wonderful spot Jesus lived there this is where a number of the disciples lived at the time a visit there will be something you always remember imagining a place in Galilee that you haven't been is kind of shocking I really want to go try to find this Roman Road right now we're leaving Nazareth we're trying to get to a remaining exposed section of first century Roman Road the location called Kalani Junction there's an actual current road that goes around there the modern road has been reconfigured so we're still trying to figure out exactly how to get there but we're supposed to be able to put our feet on some actual first century Road that Jesus would have used when he left Nazareth all right so that's what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to little bit yeah we're going to have to hope that I have seen this place on Google Maps and I've read stories about it and I wanted to go see a Roman Road that Jesus walked on it was no problem all we had to do was over that barbed wire fence and through that field over that hill guard rails and after about 20 minutes there we shared that hoard there we are during the first century of course the Romans controlled this area and they built a series of roads that just dotted the landscape it's a ruined road and you have all these weeds you have all these thorns and thistles popping up this is a road that actually stretched all the way from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee and even farther beyond than that and so Jesus would have left Nazareth and come down this way toward the Sea of Galilee and over the hill there to the left and over that and down he would have come out at the bottom of the Arbel Pass and then continued around the north side of the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum it would have and behind us so heading west we would have nazareth the home town of gps so from nazareth to Capernaum what's the distance well it depends on exactly where the road meandered through here but I would say somewhere between 20 and 25 miles we're walking on history right now we are if Jesus and his disciples during the time as they were walk between Nazareth and confirm they probably would have come down this road which is amazing yes part of the culture in Israel is there's history everywhere there's history underneath you there's history around you several hundred yards behind this gas station there's a first-century road in the US we think something a couple hundred years is old and over here they've got things millennia old because they don't call oh they don't call old because their stuff older than that just around the corner so it just it redefines in your mind what old is it gives you a fresh perspective one of the things I remember is walking on the road and being able to see the hill in the distance and knowing that these are probably the same views that the early disciples had as they walk on this same Road nothing has changed about that over the last 2,000 years walking literally in their footsteps it was an adventure I mean getting up there and walking on the road was an adventure and it was worth it to be able to stand on that piece of history [Music] I've been looking forward to coming to knock in its are the whole trip yeah what's cool it here is they have this boat that they found is actually from the first century we're in the museum getting ready to walk in and look at the boat and we meet mr. roof on one of the two brothers that helped find the boat so we're here at Guinness are ya with mr. UV Lafont yeah one of the two brothers who found the ancient boat yeah back in 1986 yes how did that feel when you found the boat I feel like a like I'm a fly one eh I'll fly because I'm a child a dreaming maybe one day they whatever going and I find something maybe book and after I find it all the time you think about it and you find what you dreaming I don't touch the air I fly and she changed my life because before I don't believe the goal and after I find it everything's changed inside and now I believe it and because I believe it all the time day after day the good things come for me okay because he change all the area from something will be seen through coming yes because they both is here on the boat is beautiful I mean a first century boat and you all did a wonderful job preserving it getting it over here and sharing it with the world in 1986 there was the drought but the water went back from the shore that's how you saw it and found it yes what was the process like getting it out of the mud and over here we are finding through this the spring and the raining note stuff is me and the light will go go and go we are afraid they covered so we are digging 12th day and night very very quickly in the night to the good way is not separating we are massive you were putting sandbags down you trying to keep the water awakened and then when you got it over here too serve it because the wood was so fragile you were going through a process of solidifying making the wood heart again after she stayed in the wax worm rocks ten years they want to go inside the wood the water go outside we are checking carbon-14 she's 2,000 m time from Jesus behind us there's this example of polyurethane you coated it yes and you floated it on the lake around 2,000 M so you so after 2,000 years that boat came out of the mud and was floating on the sea again yes yeah there is amazing everything you do because it was a blessing it was a blessing to be a part of that the moment we find the boat the Sailaja came clean pieces and said she was very old the weather change is very strong born starting stop quickly the Sun were too big rainbow go outside she saw spunky she's double rainbow and we are feeling this boat belongs from somebody before now we'll give it to us I call invisible yes she change all there yes on something good did you take us to go see the boat did we go through and say calm all right that would be great [Music] can now you see slowly slowly the goal and after this is how look works out now we are Clinic she stay a sing one night ear to see every thank you video thank you I mean it's not something that compared to the Eiffel Tower I mean it's just it's not that impressive it's not that big what's impressive about it is how old it is how long it was preserved the fact that they were able to harden the wood and keep it from disintegrating further the fact that it's connected to the lake it's connected to the first century it's connected to the time of Christ that's what impresses you about it it's a darkened room because they're trying to protect the boat and it's really only about a third of the boat the part of the boat that was concealed in mud for 2,000 years you know growing up in the Pacific Northwest around water you know the Pacific Ocean you get on boats all the time you know you go crab fishing you get on ferries to take you from one place to the other you doctor's car but to come and see this boat and see something that was connected to the time and the life of Jesus is just extra special to see something that helps you visualize what several of his apostles might have worked in it helps you picture that so much clearer and I think there's tremendous value and seeing the boat and making that connection especially if you know something about the Sea of Galilee during the first century because at that time there were about 16 ports all the way around the lake and so there was constantly traffic going across the lake it's not really that way anymore most the boats that are out there are tourist boats but then the lake was much more active and this would've been the type of boat that have been all over the water so to imagine being in something like that when a wind storm came down or imagine being in something like that at night and not being able to make headway would make me a little bit nervous to be in something that looked like that and so to see that helps me picture how the disciples might have felt when things like that happen [Music] that ancient boat was really cool yeah but you couldn't ride on it on the Sea of Galilee today let's get on a real boat all right it's out [Music] being on the boat and passing as close as we did to everything gave great perspective to how close everything is you know when I'm reading through the Gospels when I read about Jesus going from Nazareth to Capernaum or he goes from Capernaum around the side of the sea in my mind the spaces are so large the distances are so large but to be on the boat in one spot on the sea and do just a little bit of a quarter turn and see all those places you get Capernaum and you get the Church of the attitudes and you keep going around and there's not Ginosar with the ancient vote and there's Mount Arbel with the past that he would have walked on the Roman Road just to see all of that and a quarter turn puts into perspective how how tightly everything is connected and how close it is to be here just passing the cove of the sower it's just it's a Bible student geek out moment to see the natural amphitheater of the cove helps you visualize why Jesus got in the boat and put out a little ways as he spoke up to the folks on the hill it's hard to put into words being here and imagining that and seeing that in your mind's eye not just reading it on a page and going oh yeah that happened but to understand the why anybody who's been reading through that and then you see it that's a geek up moment to stand here and get perspective of distances and elevations and contours and Road it helps the text come alive these things really happen it happened in this land and hopefully we're able to communicate some of that to everybody else as they watch those one of the boat drivers comes up and throws a net he shows us this is how they would have thrown a net when they were fishing in Jesus day so you've got Peter and Andrew and James and John these fishermen that would have fish like this and then he offers hey would you like to throw the net so yeah you know how often do you get a chance to do something like that [Music] he should not quit his day job I think on a scale from one to ten mind that throwing is like a 12 still nothing for lunch more falafel [Music] it is gorgeous out here today it really is it's a beautiful day here so we're at the Sea of Galilee why don't you read a little bit for mark 1 this is the area where Jesus called his disciples and in mark 1 it says and passing along the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and Jesus said to them follow me and I will make you become fishers of men and immediately they left their nets and followed him you can really visualize that it talks a lot about the occupation of these four men you know they're fishermen they're casting their nets they're cleaning their nets they're fixing their nets and you can really see all of that going on right here you can imagine that real absolutely that's one of the reasons why it's no nice to see this here at the Sea of Galilee about how far would that have happened where Jesus calls them how far would that have happened from this spot it would have happened somewhere here on the northern shore so I would say anywhere between a half mile either way of where we're standing right now so let's get some perspective then if I start going around the lake this way a little bit further what am I going to run into well this will be the northern shore in the next big city you'll come to is Capernaum ok and go in the opposite direction well we've got the plane of Ganesh right which was just that just over that Ridge and there were a number of villages during the first century including the town of Magdala which we think is where Mary Magdalene lived and of course rising above that you have Mount Arbel and the Arbel pass which have been the road between the lake and lower Galilee where Nazareth is so these men these were common men the four that we read about they're fishermen they have this very average everyday job and those are the types of people that Jesus called to be his apostles what type of fish would they have been fishing for well most likely they would have been fishing for tilapia which is a common fish you can pull out of the lake today they even serve it here in town you can actually purchase what they call a st. Peter's fish how about we go try some of that that sounds great [Music] those fish are huge this is tilapia tilapia comes out of the Sea of Galilee here and it's commonly served in a lot of restaurants right here as st. Peter's fish now is it always served and prepared this way well you can get it with filleted and things like that but it's more fun to eat it like this okay that is really good very good I have never eaten fish like this before [Music] [Music] [Music] I love coming to Capernaum Capernaum is one of the favorite places to go in Israel and the reason is is because so many things with regards to Jesus life happened there and so it's a great place to go to it's a great place to visualize exactly where it fits on the sea when you stand there on the shore you can actually visualize a little harbour there that boats went in and out of and no doubt Peter and his fishing partners did all the time well you think about it from Jesus perspective this is the first place that Jesus goes from his family's home in Nazareth this is his home this is where he's meeting people this is where he spends the majority of his time this is the place where his family comes to get him at one point thinking that he's lost his mind and this is the place where he explains look my family my mother my brothers are the ones to do the will of my father so it's a special place for Jesus even though eventually it's a place that he ends up condemning because of their lack of belief one of the standout features of Capernaum is the fourth century synagogue built on top of the foundation of the first century synagogue that Jesus would have used and so you know right underneath your feet this is a place where Jesus taught this is a place where Jesus read from the scroll this is a place where so many things happen and even though you're not in the space you're above the space you know that's the area so there's just there's so much to Capernaum for anybody who's been reading their Gospels when Jesus was rejected at Nazareth he came about 25 miles over the north side of the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum that's right and he makes Capernaum his hometown we're standing right now in a fourth century synagogue what's significant about that in Luke the seventh chapter it reads after he had finished all those things in the hearings of the people he entered Capernaum now a Centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death who was highly valued by him and when the Centurion heard about Jesus he sent to him elders of the Jews asking him to come and heal his servant and when they came to Jesus they pleaded with him earnestly saying he is worthy to have you do this for him for he loves our nation and he is the one who built us this synagogue so we are standing in a fourth century synagogue but it's on the foundation of a first century synagogue the synagogue that's mentioned here in Luke the in Chapter we know from mark that this is one of the synagogue's that Jesus came and taught in over in mark chapter 1 where people were just amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had Authority and they were just so impressed with what he was saying and how he was saying it there are just so many things that happen here and you mentioned their significance to the port yes right Jesus used the port here capernum a number of times as he traveled across the lake right go into different places they need to go to standing here in this synagogue it's really easy to visualize what it would have been like to have the synagogue be the center of the town and really easy to visualize what like things have been like you walk out through the door and you can see the remains of the city you go down toward the beach which you could have seen from here as rent goes down this synagogue here would have been just like many other synagogues in the region in which as you exited the door always faced Jerusalem okay and the the first century synagogue would have been made out of basalt stone so it wouldn't have been this white that we're seeing it would have been a darker black that's volcanic rock it's a really neat layout a very consistent layout it really is from city to city town to town they had the same type of synagogue they may have had little small differences in sizes but they would been the same basic layout okay see what you have here little prayer notes in the wall people come through here and they'll write down a prayer on the little piece of paper and stick it in the wall this is reminiscent of what they do in Jerusalem at the western wall right and so the thought is that prayers that are put into the wall will be sent directly to God because they see this as a holy site or a sacred site right looks like they picked up the practice here in Capernaum I mean these pieces of paper some of them are so tiny that and they're cramming them into these little nooks and crannies and cracks every little available space if you take that one of the things that makes the purnam special is it's a place that's been developed and preserved really well I mean you can see the outlines of the first century streets of the alleyways of the houses one of the features there is this very rich tradition identifying Peters house the probable location where Peter lived where Jesus would have healed Peters mother-in-law a very strong reliable tradition but to be able to look at that spot and think that probably happened there it's a little odd when you per see it because yeah about 20-25 years ago they actually built a church building over it and so what you have underneath there are the remains of a Byzantine church and down at the bottom of the remains of a first-century dwelling and so the thinking is is that wealth the Byzantines so many centuries ago thought there was some importance to this place this may be the house of Peter there's a verse in the Gospels that talks about how Jesus taught in the synagogues in Galilee does this very vague there are multiple synagogues multiple towns we don't know specifically which one Jesus taught in but Capernaum we do we know that Jesus taught in the 1st century synagogue in Capernaum so to have that specificity and standing right above it it's just it's unique it's special it was beautiful [Music] in this episode of following the Messiah we've tried to focus on the men that Jesus called to be his apostles he called ordinary men with ordinary occupations these fishermen this tax collector in order to accomplish the great goal of spreading the message about the coming kingdom of God that it had arrived and that Jesus was here Jesus and the gospel they do the same thing today they call ordinary people what Paul says over in 1st Corinthians 1 is he doesn't call the most popular he doesn't call the strongest but he calls the foolish he calls the weak he calls those that the world wouldn't necessarily recognize or choose first but those are the kind of people that respond to the gospel they become what they need to become because of Jesus the same is true of you God wants to use you for extraordinary purposes for his kingdom for his glory for his name the question is are you going to respond to the gospel call in your life [Applause] [Music] caesarea philippi a place where men built a temple to worship a false god the people who lived here were about as far away from Jerusalem as you could get both physically and spiritually why would Jesus bring his disciples here why would he ask them such a profound question here who is Jesus [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we've been all over the place looking at locations and events that were significant to the life of Jesus and what we want to focus on in this episode we want to focus on Jesus identity who people came to understand him to be we want to start back at his presentation in the temple and there are two people that interact with that young family and they say some things that are just they're astounding you have Simeon who interacts with them he's excited to see this young man he says in Luke chapter 2 Lord you're letting your servant depart in peace according to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation that you've prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel you have this older man that they don't know interact with them at the temple and then just after that it says in verse 36 of chapter 2 and there was a prophetess Anna the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher who has advanced in years having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin then as a widow until she was eighty-four she did not depart from the temple worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day and coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem she says these things about a little tiny baby that she's never met about a family that she doesn't know this is not your typical greeting of an infant you're right and because of that I want to take you to a few places here in which Jesus identity is being revealed to the people and I'd like to start off in Jerusalem I'd like to go up to Nazareth and discuss Jesus as he preached and taught in the synagogue and then from there I want to go back on the Sea of Galilee there's a question there about who Jesus is and then finally I want to pull it all together with a visit to Caesarea Philippi the events that take place at these locations hold great significance and trying to answer the question who is Jesus the son of the carpenter [Music] to stand here at the southern wall of the Temple Mount coming up these steps we face one of the two entrances to the Temple Mount itself and the arches they've been blocked in for a long time but even when you stand back at a distance and you look at them you can see the profile and the outline of the gate and you can just imagine how many people would have been able to access the Temple Mount at one time coming through gates as large as this not to trivialize it at all but for a modern comparison I mean you think about going to a sporting event and going to the stadiums you think about going to a theme park and the flow of people coming in and out and so you would have had families constantly going up and as family has finished their business and their sacrifices they would have been coming down when you walk up to these gates that are in the wall you're just humbled at the size of them I mean they were 2530 feet high just think as a Jewish family coming from Galilee coming to Jerusalem and seeing this huge structures would have just been almost unbelievable imagine being Mary and Joseph coming into this space for the first time with your firstborn son to dedicate him at the temple however we're going to add to that story a little bit because Luke includes some details that the other gospel authors don't what he includes is interaction with two individuals one an older gentleman named Simeon and one a prophetess named Anna Simeon actually takes Jesus up into his arms Simeon starts offering praise for being able to see the Lord's salvation before he dies now that's not a normal thing that someone would say upon meeting someone's firstborn child we like to praise how they look and they remind us of so-and-so they would have prayed over him they would have wished good things for the future but not everyone gets connected with salvation he got to see the Lord's Messiah and he recognized something special about Jesus and Anna does the same thing when they're done with the dedication she starts getting excited that she's been able to meet baby Jesus so even from his infancy there are some questions about the identity of Jesus that need to be answered and Simeon and Anna answer [Music] you [Music] walking into the completed first century synagogue to visualize Jesus standing and teaching and interacting with crowds to see the seating area around both sides of us to imagine people facing each other even as they're paying attention to the person at the front of the room speaking or reading it's a special moment we're here in the first century replica synagogue in Nazareth village and over in Luke chapter 4 it explains one of the times where Jesus comes back to his hometown of Nazareth in Luke chapter 4 verse 16 it says he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as was his custom he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim Liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and he rolled up the scroll gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to them today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and they wrestled with what he meant by all of that they understood this was Jesus who grew up here this is Joseph and Mary's son the carpenter's son what does he mean that he has fulfilled this prophecy from Isaiah toward the end of that section in Luke chapter 4 he explains a prophet in his own country is not accepted and they actually reject him they drag him out of the synagogue take him to a cliff here in Nazareth to throw him off the hill but Jesus ends up escaping and from that point on he makes Capernaum his hometown but it would have happened in a place like this where his first-century neighbors were wrestling with who does Jesus think that he is who is he saying that he is and this is just a great place to help us visualize that as they wrestled with that great question to imagine Jesus being in a synagogue like that in Nazareth when he reads from Isaiah and says that this has been fulfilled in your hearing and to imagine that group of people that he grew up with in a space like that reject him and drag him outside to throw him off a cliff and to imagine the hurt that he must have felt thinking about how he wanted to be a benefit to these people if he wanted these people to benefit from who he was and what he was doing and it made you hurt for Jesus as he was hurting for them you I we're on a sea of gallilee the northern part of it up by Capernaum Capernaum is just a little bit west of where the Jordan feeds into the northernmost tip of the Sea of Galilee now Capernaum is where Jesus lived during the majority of his ministry and it's where he called several of his apostles so many things happened on and around the Sea of Galilee in regards to Jesus in his ministry and one of those events is recorded for us in mark chapter 4 starting in verse 35 at the end of the day the evening had come it's starting to get dark and Jesus and His apostles get into a boat to sail to the opposite side Jesus ends up falling asleep and a great windstorm comes down the disciples become afraid they wake Jesus up and say teacher do you not care that we are perishing and when Jesus was awake he rebuked the wind and said to the sea peace be still like he's calming a household pet and in just an instant in response to his instruction and his words the wind stops he turns to the disciples and asks why are you so afraid have you still no faith they were filled with great fear and said to one another who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him and we come back to this question where they're trying to understand and figure out who is this carpenter's son exactly who is he that can command and instruct nature and have it respond to him in a split second and that happened somewhere right around here on the Sea of Galilee [Music] [Music] we've arrived at Caesarea Philippi about an hour north of the Sea of Galilee yes and walking up to it this thing is just enormous it's huge it really is a beautiful location and there are a number of things here I want to show you [Music] this site has a lot of historical significance even prior to the time of Jesus well it does it sits on an international highway between Mesopotamia and Egypt and so there was a lot of traffic through here people would come through the city they would trade here they would stay here but they would also come here to worship and what they worshiped was a grotto and temple dedicated to the god Pan and that's where the name Pena's came from now since then the word has changed a little bit and we now call it Baniyas okay it's the p2 abbey and this was set up by Herod Philip ii the son of king herod okay so this is herod the tetrarch we read about him correct and in the same area we also have something that was built and dedication to one of the Caesar Caesar Augustus and we don't know that it was exactly right here but it was here in Caesarea Philippi somewhere in the area that's correct King Herod built three temples one was here at Caesarea Philippi there was another one at Caesarea maritima and there was another one at Samaria and we have examples of some of that you know we have some of these pillars some of these capitals but besides that I mean what most people come to see is the remains of those temples and the the sacrificial sites of Pam that's correct and those are just up the hill over there okay so below us is what this is the Benyus spring it's one of the three rivers that lead into that are the headwaters from the Jordan River okay so this connects with the Jordan a little ways down yes okay when we first walk up it's very peaceful you've got one of the headwaters rolling by but then when you turn the corner and go up the hill it's just this stark red cliff face with temple ruins the Sun is baking you coming up here we've got this cave with a big rock in it right well this is where the sanctuary of pan wants to it the grottoes are on up the hill here sanctuary you just sit right here right in this grotto there was water that flowed out of Mount Hermon down through here and what they would do is they would bring a goat and try sacrifice to go they would go the goat into the water they have two goats sank that was good if it did not and it floated that meant that hand rejected their sacrifice unfortunately at that point the next I critize was a child so they would bring a child up here and throw the child into the water that's horrible yes so at some point this was all filled in wine is not flowing out anymore now it was all filled in there's a huge building here and the water would flow out and it flowed down to the string where we were below okay so this is the court of pan and we're walking up into this grotto area with a Mitch with this shelf what we've been put on the show they would put all kind of idols and other things dedicated to the god Pan okay now there are a lot framing this grotto on the outside as well so those would have been filled they would have been filled us with statues and idols of you a very very idolatrous place that's right okay so we've got this arch the niche right there and the temple would have come out from here is that on this platform of course a lot of is falling down over the years so this whole floor has sunken in yeah you were saying seismic activity in the area that's right this is where a statue would have sat here at the court of nemesis though it had a huge temple right here for them to come up worship you see mid chapter niche after niche where they had idle after idle after idle you can just imagine the lighting that would have been there the candles that would have been there instance that would have been offered there this was a huge deal yeah you see floors and columns and things that have of course fallen over and over the years that these used to be temple these used to be sanctuaries these are places where people would go and worship these idols and that's what the city was known for it so to see all of that just makes you realize how empty all of that idolatry was and how it didn't help the people who observed all of that it didn't help the people to sacrifice the animals and their children the niches are empty the idols are gone the floors are a mess the columns are knocked over that is not the answer idolatry is not the answer and it didn't benefit those people in the least to worship those things normally when you come here and you're helping people understand why this is so significant there's a specific passage that you like to read and explain I do I think it's interesting that as Matthew wrote his gospel there are some times in which he tells us exactly where things took place and then there are other times in which he does it for instance the transfiguration we're not exactly sure where that took place or something like the Sermon on the Mount we're not exactly sure where that took place when he came to this story he made the specific decision to tell us it happened at Caesarea Philippi and I'm forced to ask the question why let's read this passage here now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples who do people say that the son of man is and they said some say John the Baptist others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets and he said to them but who do you say that I am Simon Peter replied you are the Christ the Son of the Living God and I think Peters response is so significant if you look at Peters answer and think about the role of this city and the nature of the city and the grottoes and temples everything that are up on the hill what he's doing is drawing a distinction between the Living God that Jesus is the Son up and the dead false idols here in Caesarea Philippi and I think that's exactly why Matthew told us this event took place here so by going up there and seeing the temple depan they're contrasting those dead idols with who Jesus is correct who he's claiming to be Peter is saying that's who he now believes Jesus to be that's correct being here and seeing that helps to put all of that in perspective it helps me visualize exactly what Jesus was trying to communicate what he was trying to compare and contrast I'm so glad that we came here to see all absolutely for any Bible student that text is probably one of the most critical or important pinnacle passages in the entire New Testament and so to go to the place the region where Jesus asks that question and Peter answers it is just huge one of the things that you realize when you go to the site this is a place where they're worshipping dead idols this is a place where they're sacrificing animals the things that don't exist and in some cases they are sacrificing their children they're sacrificing their sons to these things that don't exist in contrast to that the son of the Living God asking the questions you realize Who I am I'm the son that's going to be sacrifice it just blows you away to realize the stark contrast and so I think to be there to have that explained to be able to visualize that helps you appreciate how immense the question and how significant the answer is this wasn't just a carpenter's son this was the long-awaited Messiah The Anointed One this was the promised deliverer of Israel and everyone else [Music] in this episode of following the Messiah we've been trying to look at different events in the life of Jesus where his identity is being questioned where people are trying to figure out who is this man we talked about Simeon and Anna at the dedication of Jesus at the temple them acknowledging that this is the Lord's Messiah we talked about Jesus explaining to his hometown synagogues that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah now they rejected him and then he went on to Capernaum we culminated by going over to Caesarea Philippi where Jesus asks his apostles a very personal question first by saying who do people say that I am and then really bringing it home and asking them after all the time they've spent with him all the teaching they've heard and what they've seen him do who do you say that I am every person and every generation has to answer that great question who is Jesus is he the Son of God or is he not our hope is that you'll be able to answer that great question by saying that Jesus Christ is the son of the Living God [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Appian Media

Views: 352,901

Rating: 4.7559733 out of 5

Keywords: Appian Media, Following the Messiah, Episodes 1-5, Israel, Jerusalem, Jesus Christ, Christian Films, Christian Movies, Nazareth, Bible, Bible Lands, Bethlehem, 1st Century Jerusalem, Bible Study, Free Bible Videos, Sea of Galilee, Jesus, Apostles

Id: D57ZLio3pSM

Length: 108min 41sec (6521 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 22 2017