Our Trip to Jerusalem — Luke 24

0:00 So, Roger asked me to to, give a little talk about our trip to Israel. And so, I've, I got my pictures out, all 523 of them. I said, this isn't going to work. So, decided that we spent about a day and a half in Jerusalem. So, I decided just to talk about the Jerusalem part of our trip.

0:32 And so, we are going to start off at the Wailing Wall. I am going to see if this will work. Yes. Okay. We're going to start off at the Wailing Wall.

0:54 And so, What I did is I've I've quoted concerning the the time that the children of Israel were in captivity in Babylon and the great longing of heart that they had to return to Jerusalem. And, I'm using it as a sort of a comparison so that we could understand a little bit of the way that the particularly the Orthodox Jews feel about the the temple site today and what maybe give us a sense of... A little bit of a sense of what the wailing law was about. So, in in '5... About five eighty six BC, the Israelites were taken captive to Babylon.

1:31 The whole city of Jerusalem including the temple was destroyed. And and they were they were filled with great longing for... To return to Jerusalem. And and I particularly enjoyed this this quotation from Psalm a 137, and and it kind of captures their longing, their extreme longing. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we we remembered Zion.

1:59 We hung up our harps under the willows in the midst of it. They just couldn't sing as long as they were in Babylon. And, if you were to go to 137, you'd see that they were being asked to sing a song from their native land. So so, finally, a couple verses further on down, says, if I forget you, o Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.

2:24 And so, this is kind of lived out in in the in the Wailing Wall. Now, I put a picture up here. This was one of the first pictures I took, one of the early pictures that I took. And we're we're on... We're facing the Temple Mount.

2:42 So this is the Temple Mount here. This is the South Wall. This is the West Wall. The Wailing Wall is on the Western Wall. So if if you could...

2:53 If we could just get back to right past this tower, this would be the Wailing Wall area, right back in here to the Western Wall. So you can see over here where the buses are parked. So our bus stopped. There's a sign there that says you can only park for five minutes. So they they they parked down here long enough to let us get off and we walked up the hill here.

3:17 And if you look real carefully right here, you can see the top of the gate. It's called the Dung Gate. And and so so here here we are, we walked up up beside the the southern wall. We turned into the Dung Gate. There's a checkpoint beyond that.

3:36 And then you come to the Wailing Wall and it's an area, there's a plaza area out here that's, I'm going to guess it's large as a couple of football fields or something. Maybe it's not quite that large. There's a wall here, a short wall and then maybe another 50 feet from there on back. Maybe even longer, maybe 75 feet from there up to the wailing wall. You can see people lined up along the the wall.

4:05 You can see their head and shoulders in silhouette there. And and then over here, I have a picture of some men that are standing in front of the Wailing wall. Oftentimes, they would repetitively bow like this, and and I I suppose it's pleading. It looks like they're just rocking, but they're they're pleading with God to, I suppose, restore them to the Jerusalem to its glory, to restore the temple there and worship. Another picture of the Wailing Wall, you can see the men all lined up along the wall and quite a bit of activity.

4:43 We noticed that there was there were sometimes synagogue groups that would that would come and and they would kind of gather in one place and and you would have one of the men would be a sort of a reader. I suppose he was reading from the Torah. It was in Hebrew. And then, he would get to a point he would stop and all the men would say, and together would make some statement. To me, was like the response of reading that we've done before, where the the reader will stand up and read, and then the others will all read a portion together.

5:21 But it was it was kind of interesting. You can see that it was fairly crowded. This was right, right we up near the wall that is crowded. I'll go back to that slide there. I want you to notice that there there's a large arched door that goes back in here.

5:42 This may be ten ten feet wide or something like that. And and there's an area back probably, oh possibly a 100 feet or more deep in there that's in the basement of that building. And I suppose that allows them even on very very bad weather days to still be able to come up to the wailing wall. And we noticed that men were, that it was quite crowded in there. It's almost like a synagogue.

6:08 There's a there's a library in there. And and so, we spent probably only maybe forty five minutes around the wailing wall. There's a place for the ladies. Kathy went in with the ladies. For some reason, I didn't go over there.

6:23 And so, they have a separate place that they go to, and Kathy was just complete, was really impressed about the sincerity and the longing of their hearts. Matter of fact, I think it's it's a good a good, maybe example for us in a sense. We wouldn't pray for perhaps the same thing that they would pray for, but but this desire towards God that's expressed by these people and and may may there be more zealousness in our own hearts to seek after the Lord. So, after after we had been there, then we we went up here. Now, there's kind of a ramp that runs back that direction.

7:26 You would you would think, well, I'm going down into a basement or something. But what you're actually going down to is what they call the Rabbinical Tunnel. So, they've done an excavation about 30 feet underneath the ground along the foundation of the actual temple mount and these are the old ancient stones over here on the right that they've excavated. This may be possibly three or four feet wide and it goes for 800 feet, think, something like that. On the far end, runs into a water system and there's cisterns and it was quite interesting.

8:06 So we walked through the Rabbinical Tunnel. We came out on the far end into the into the Muslim quarter, I believe. We walked into there quite a ways and got into into the, oh, a Christian quarter anyway. And and this is the bazaar. So, we got a little taste of old of Old Jerusalem.

8:36 Now, what I wanna do now is go back to that original picture and I want to show you what we actually did. We didn't go to the Wailing Wall first even though I've shown it first. We came to the same spot though and they let us off here. I want you to observe this this palm tree that's right here, and then I'm going to slip to the next slide, and this is the palm tree. Okay.

9:02 So that you get an idea of where we actually were. So we we got out of our tour bus. You can see what the tour bus looked like. We got out of our tour bus. We we came across the street here and headed down this street and I've written into the City Of David.

9:20 I just want you to notice the sign actually says, City Of David and it points down that direction. We walked about a city block down there and came out on a plaza and noticed there was a staircase going down underneath the plaza. And so we walked down underneath and here we found that the plaza was a steel covering and underneath was this excavation. Now now it it it's the it's the ruins of a large stone structure which dates back to David's time and it's thought to at least be likely the actual palace that David, that was built for David by, I believe it was Hiram and you get the story of it in first Samuel five and are told that David came to the Jebusites that were this area, and that he he conquered the area with, I believe it was Joab took the lead up through the waterway, and and and they they conquered Jerusalem, and it was called Zion, and it was renamed the City Of David, and and it's the area that's that's right about where we are, right here. Now now, it it was his palace was called the House Of Cedar and it was built by Hiram for him and and I suppose it was a rock dwelling that was that was paneled with cedar.

11:03 Now if you turn just directly back and and look out here and there's a little walkway out out in front of the ruins and you can look down the down the hill into the Kidron Valley. So just on the east side of the Temple Mount runs the Kidron Valley, and you can see the little stream Kidron is running down through the valley. The Mount Of Olives is on the other side, features many places in the New Testament and the story of Jesus, the Mount Of Olives. Mount Scopus, I don't know too much about... Couldn't find an actual reference to Scopus in the bible.

11:44 It may go under a different name. Anyway, the the Hebrew University, which is quite famous, is is located up here on Mount Scopus. This was kind of interesting to me. It's they call it the Mount Of Offenses, and it's the it's a little small peak just south just south of the Mount Of Olives, and it's the place where where Solomon built the the altars for his for his wives to sacrifice to other gods, and it was quite a snare to Solomon, and quite an offense to the Lord. So it was given the name of the Mount Of Offenses.

12:22 But you can kinda get, I think this is a good picture to get a sense of of the Mount Of Olives and how it's right across from. We're standing just south, maybe three or 400 feet south of the Temple Mount, and we're looking out over the Valley Of Kidron towards the Mount Of Olives. Now, what we did is we we kind of wound down the side of the hill. It zigzagged back and forth. So, we're going down into the Kidron Valley, walking down there and we're going to go down to the Spring Of Gihon, which is an ancient spring that fed water to Jerusalem.

13:44 And so there's this Spring Of Gihon, which was a good water source for him, but it was outside the city wall. They could build a wall around it, but would probably not be very defensible. So, he has this brainstorm. He he he he decides he's going to to to make a tunnel through the rock, and bring the water supply from the Spring Of Gihon through a tunnel into the lower part of Jerusalem. And so, he does it.

14:16 And they say that they started from both ends and came to the center. I can hardly imagine with their technology that they could do that, but apparently they they did it. And so, what we did is we walked all the way down into the well into the Spring Of Gihon. By the way, Hezekiah covered over the Spring Of Gihon so that the enemy couldn't even tell that there was a spring down underneath and and all the water fed into this tunnel. We walked through the tunnel ourselves.

14:46 It's it's about 1,800 feet long, so about a third of a mile. We walked knee deep in water through for about a third of a while... Mile. And and one of the one of the fun things is that that as we exited Hezekiah's Tunnel, we came out here into the Pool Of Siloam, which features now, think, let's see, was it Devon that talked about the, no, that's different. I'll get to that in a minute.

15:21 Okay, the Pool Of Siloam is John nine, the healing of the blind man. You are coming here, coming out of the tunnel, and if you turn right around and look the other direction, then you're looking at the Pool Of Siloam and it's it's ancient. Now, one of the things that's kind of interesting is notice how far this is down below street level. What are we, 18, 20 feet down below street level? And that was an interesting feature that I noted in Jerusalem that that apparently over the last two thousand years through all the wars destruction and the rebuilding and the destruction and rebuilding, this occurred.

16:05 Remember the crusaders came in and the terrible destruction that occurred that ruins just began to build up and build up they're approximately 18 feet in what's called the Kardo, which is a street that runs north and south in the middle of Jerusalem. Were doing some digging, and they and they found evidence of something. They started excavating it, and they found the old Roman Cardo. Now, one of the interesting things about, well, it it it's a road that runs east, north, north and south in the middle of the old city, and it has pillars on either side. And and when when they excavated it, they found that the the road level itself of the Cardo was 18 feet below the current road level.

17:01 So, that means that over the last two thousand years, it's built up eighteen years of... 18 feet of debris within Jerusalem. I I thought that was kind of fascinating. So, you can see it here. Okay.

17:15 So we we we have the story of how the Lord Jesus meets the blind man and and his disciples say, sinned? This man or or his parents that he's born blind? And and and Jesus says, it's neither he nor his parents sin. He doesn't mean they never sinned. He means that their sin had nothing to do with his being born blind.

17:39 And and and he said, it's rather so that so the works of God might be made manifest in him. And so, the Lord Jesus then did this strange miracle in which he he spit on the ground, and he made mud out of the spittle. Sounds kind of gross to us, doesn't it? Made mud out of the spittle, and then he took it and smeared it over the man's eyes, and he said, go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Well, here we are, the pool of Siloam.

18:07 So, he goes to the pool of Siloam, and he washes, and he came seeing. It's just a beautiful story of the Lord's grace. Now, how did that story end? Well, a little later, the Lord Jesus finds the man, and he asked him this question. It's found in John nine, he says, do you believe in the son of God?

18:27 And and the man the man has perhaps this doubtful expression on his face. He says, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe believe in him? And Jesus said, You're looking at him, and I can just see the man, his eyes opening in amazement, and suddenly he just said, he says, his answer was, Lord, I believe. Isn't that a wonderful response, isn't it? Lord, I believe.

19:04 This is the Pool Of Bethesda. This is John 5. This actually is kind of a seem to be a sort of a garden area that was in front of the Pool Of Bethesda. Turn around and look that way and you can see the ancient Pool Of Bethesda. Now again, you get this same the same sense that that that it's down deeper than what you would have expected.

19:34 Probably all this is probably mounted up 18 or 20 feet. This here is... If you were looking there and say, now what is original? What was really there when Jesus was here? Probably these these steps here.

19:51 So so in John five it says, there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in the Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. And these lay a great multitude of six people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. So apparently, an angel would come down every so often and would stir up the waters, and whoever would step into the waters first was healed. And so the Lord Jesus comes up and he comes to the Pool Of Bethesda, and he comes up to this paralyzed man. And and he looks at and he's he...

20:30 I think it's the one that it says he would... He had been that way for thirty eight years. And so and so the the Lord so the Lord Jesus, he asked him this question. He says, do you want to be healed? It was a searching question.

20:45 He was he was he was starting a conversation with a man. Do you want to be healed? And and the the man immediately... He doesn't know it's it's Jesus. Okay?

20:54 He he... But he immediately begins to explain to Jesus, you know, he said, when when... I don't have anyone to help me, he said, and when when the waters are are stirred up, I want to get up and get in there, but someone else always gets in there ahead of me, and so I I can never be first. And and he was acknowledging to Jesus that that he just couldn't do it himself. Well, that's a good place to suddenly be at, where you're recognizing your own inability help yourself.

21:31 And so, the Lord Jesus, his immediate response was this to the man. Jesus said to the paralyzed man, rise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately, the man stands right up and picks up his bed, and and begins to walk. He he doesn't even realize it's Jesus, but the but the pharisees come along and they give him a hard time because it's it's the Sabbath day. And and so, they give him a hard time.

21:57 Well, a conversation occurs and and I believe that was Devon today that was talking to us a little bit about about that conversation in John chapter five. And, the conversation ends up with this wonderful gospel verse. It's John five twenty four. It says, truly truly I say unto you, he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. What a beautiful, wonderful promise and and that was kind of the the conclusion to this whole story.

22:35 I love that story. Okay. Now, from this point, what I want to do is I want to go back and and I'm really... This picture was actually taken from the same place that that original picture was taken. It's just rotating around and taking a picture out over the Mount Of Olives.

22:52 And and you can see that it's highly terraced. We went to the top at one point and we could see that there were many graves down there. Apparently this is largely a graveyard up here, which I didn't realize that. And and so so what I wanna do is is take the next twenty minutes to try to lead us through that that last week or so of the lord's life when he comes up to Jerusalem. So so you remember when the when the Lord Jesus first came up to Jerusalem at that last week, that he he comes to Bethany first.

23:33 Now now just just to give you some perspective, Bethany is... If you go over the top of of of the Mount Of Olives, and maybe a half mile, at the most three quarters of a mile, the other side of the Mount Of Olives is Bethany. It's the place where Lazarus and Mary and Martha lived. And and so the Lord Jesus comes up to Bethany, and then on on... Apparently on Sunday morning, we call it Palm Sunday, the Lord Jesus tells his disciples to go and get this this donkey for him, and it was actually in Bethsaida, which is another little village there.

25:06 The bible says that as they came over the ridge, over the over the top of the Mount Of Olives, that they began to praise the lord saying, hosanna in highest, in the highest. Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. And they marched down this hill, and and they came over here and came into into the city, probably into the temple area. And and and as they came in, it says all of Jerusalem was moved saying, who is this? And so so the Lord Jesus had this this public introduction to to Jerusalem, and we know that he went, that's when he went into the temple.

25:48 Remember he he cast over the the tables of the money changers and and and that occurred on that day. So so that would have been... Sunday is generally taken to be Sunday. Now just four days after that on Thursday, we have the Lord Jesus with... In his last supper with his disciples and and we we had the remembrance of the Lord Jesus today.

26:17 And and so that's when it was initiated, the last supper, the the the remembrance ceremony of the Lord, taking the bread and the wine. And and then after after he had ministered, you get get this ministry in John chapters 14 through 17. So after he had ministered for some time in in the upper room, then the Lord Jesus leaves and he starts going down towards the Mount Of Olives. He's going back this direction and and he stops somewhere along the way and and he prays that beautiful prayer that you have in John 17. And then he he crosses the Valley Kedron and he goes over onto the Mount Of Olives, probably probably somewhere over, maybe just a little bit off the picture right here, and and he's going to the garden, the Garden Of Gethsemane.

27:11 And and so, now remember when he was in the upper room that he sent he sent Judas Iscariot and and told him to to go. And so so so the Lord Jesus went to the Garden Of Gethsemane. So here is Gethsemane. Cathy and I are posed here in front of the oldest tree in the garden. Now that I've I heard the statement made that that that this tree is probably the only tree in that garden that's actually old enough to to have been there at the time that our Lord was there.

27:48 There are some very ancient trees around in the garden. It's a well kept up garden. And so in in your imagination, you wanna you wanna you want to think of the Lord Jesus as as coming coming into the garden. Remember it's dark. He's in dark.

28:06 He comes in with all of his disciples. And then he leaves all of them except Peter, and James, and John. And it says he withdrew about a stone's cast. What is that? 50 feet, 75 feet?

28:20 Maybe it's longer, I don't know. I don't know, but that's my... Okay, I'm gonna say 75 feet, just so we have a little reference. So, he pulls away from the others with Peter and James and John, and then he even separates himself slightly from Peter and James and John, and he begins to pray. And and he he's he's...

28:40 This is probably the most serious prayer that is recorded in all of scripture because the the son of God is praying to the father, and and and the pressure he feels as he's facing Calvary is so tremendous that the bible actually records it. It says, the sweat read off of him like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And we hear the Lord Jesus saying, father, he says, if it be possible, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I want, but what you want. And and so so we have the Lord Jesus praying this.

29:22 Now, I I would take it from that prayer. I would take it that the Lord was saying was saying it it wasn't possible. Or perhaps, the way to say it is like this. It it might have been possible not to, but it wasn't possible for you and me to be saved unless he went went to the cross. And so, that that that's the way I would have taken that that prayer.

29:47 And so so the the Lord Jesus, he he he's been... He's he's there for a few minutes, not a long time, but but the bible says, while he was still praying that that Judas came with his with his multitude of soldiers and the servants of the high priest. They came with swords and with with with staves, and they were coming to arrest Jesus. And we remember how how here in the garden, Peter Peter stood up. Remember, Peter's the one that had that sword.

30:21 And and Peter Peter, he's gonna save Jesus, you know. He he's got that sword, and so he he goes for that servant, the high priest, cut off his ear, hit him with the sword. I I I've kind of thought, Peter Peter, you're not a very good swordsman. You may be a good fisherman, but you're not a good swordsman. So, he makes this swing at the at the servant of the high priest, and and my take on it is he almost missed him.

30:47 He hits the side of his head and shears off an ear. And the Lord Jesus rebukes Peter. He says, put away your sword into its sheath. The cup which the father has given me, shall I not drink it? He had just prayed, father, if it would be possible.

31:02 But obviously, he already had the answer, wasn't possible. He must go ahead with this project because the whole salvation of mankind is dependent upon it. So so so the the disciples all flee away and Jesus is taken and he's taken captive. Now, the bible tells us in in John chapter 19 that he was taken first to Annas, who is who is father-in-law to Caiaphas, the high priest. And then we're told from there that he was that he was sent he was sent bound to Caiaphas, and so now we're gonna say we've arrived at the House Of Caiaphas.

32:33 And and there's gotta be some big rooms in that. For one thing, we we know from the story that Peter was actually, had actually gotten into the room where the Lord Jesus was. Okay. So so as Peter denies the Lord the third time, the bible tells us that Jesus turned and looked at him. And I like to kind of visualize what that was like because I think it's very significant.

33:02 And so p Peter's there. He's just made this first... He's just made this third time that he's denied the Lord. And and I suppose he nervously glances at Jesus, and Jesus turns around at that moment. And in in my imagination, at least, their eyes meet, and there's a message that goes there.

33:23 And oh, how Peter's heart broke when he realized that he had just been guilty of denying the Lord Jesus three times. And the Bible says that he went out, and he wept bitterly. Now now, I... What I like... I just like to to think that that Peter was so much different than Judas Iscariot.

33:46 Judas Iscariot went out and he was he was he also was he he I suppose he was sorry he was he had done it, but but he didn't repent. Instead he went out and hanged himself. Peter, on the other hand, he goes out and he weeps bitterly and... But then he repents and we find out in a chapter or so after that that he was restored to the Lord. Okay.

34:14 So what would happen next? Well, the the next thing is is very early in the morning, the the Lord Jesus is taken to the Sanhedrin, a quick quick call to the Sanhedrin. Apparently they pretty much rubber stamped what the what the chief priest had already decided and by very early in the morning, they're already standing before before Pontius Pilate. Now now there's some different ideas as to exactly how that happened. Some believe it was, it actually happened in the house of Herod.

34:49 Our tour guide felt like it was a better explanation that he was actually taken to the Fortress Of Antonio, which was that Roman fortress that was immediately north of the temple site. Okay. And and I I think that was probably the most reasonable. And that's where we that's where we went next. And and so here's here's the fortress or what is, it's probably a rebuild of the Fortress Of Antonia.

35:22 But what they did say here, and this sign here says it, what they did say here is that the floor right here was the original floor. So when they were rebuilding this they and they excavated, they came to the the floor and it was it was it's in in their mind, this was what they call the lithosprotus, the the the pavement. And if you read in in John chapter 19 verse 13, it says that Pilate sat down at the... On the pavement or I guess he said his... Put his seat on the pavement.

35:56 And so he... I don't know. The... This... These walls wouldn't have been here exactly like this, but there was this paved area and Jesus is standing for Pilate and he goes through this mock trial.

36:09 Remember Pilate first sent him to Herod and then he comes back and then what kind of amazes me about the trial is that that by 09:00 in the morning, the lord Jesus was was at Calvary hanging on a cross. So that means that the whole trial, everything including going to the Sanhedrin, going to Pilate, going over to Herod, coming back to Pilate, and then walking out to Calvary all occurs in a three hour period. Now, things are really happening. You couldn't be sitting around on something like that. And so by 09:00 in the morning, even a little bit before nine, the Lord Jesus is walking out.

36:57 I wanna go for one more slide first of all. This is the basement of Antonio Fortress and this is, this was prison. Quite likely this is where Brabus was, and and probably we'll we'll guess he was in one of those cells there and I suppose the call comes, go get Brabbas. And so the Roman soldiers go and get Brabbas and and and here's here's Barabbas. What is he thinking?

37:30 Probably thinking, uh-oh, this is it. They're gonna crucify me. But what actually happens? Barabbas is actually released, and it's Jesus that they crucify in in Barabbas' place. So Jesus is chosen to be crucified.

37:47 Barabbas is chosen to be set free. Kind of an illustration to us of of of any sinner that that Jesus is the one that suffers and we're the ones that are set free. I kind of like that illustration that came from Steve Price. From from there, we stepped outside of of the Antonia Fortress. The the arch there, they say was was an original arch.

38:15 So it wasn't completely knocked down during the destruction. And and so that was kind of an interesting statement. This this is what the beginning of what would be called the Via Dolorosa. I'm not quite sure where this is in the picture, but it's... I think it's part of the same pathway.

39:01 It says, he bearing his cross went forth to a place called Golgotha. Now the Via Dolorosa goes down to what's called the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre, but but we found what seemed more realistic to us to fit the story that we actually find in the scripture, the the place that they call Gordon's Calvary, is just north of of the Jerusalem Wall, probably not over a half a mile from from right here. And so they, that's correct, would have gone out the Northern Gate and they're not, almost with inside of the gate is a place where where there's a kind of the form of a skull up in the cliff. We're going to look at it. So this is the place that sometimes called the Garden Tomb.

39:58 And just on the backside of the area of the the rounds of the of the tomb is Gordon's cavalry. And now, the Garden Tomb, require you to use their guide. They have a reason for it because an evangelical organization and they make sure that everybody that comes and looks at it gets the gospel. And so, Dean was our guide. He was a born again believer from Indiana, and he gave us a very clear gospel message, we appreciated.

40:35 He started off by taking us to Calvary. So so now, I stared at this and I had trouble. I had trouble coming up with the with the with seeing the skull. It takes a little bit of sanctified imagination, but I'm gonna point it out to you. I'm gonna point it out to you.

40:52 So here's the two eye sockets here. I'm gonna show you another picture in just a minute that maybe is a little clear. Here's the two eye sockets here. Here's the nose, maybe the bottom of the chin down here. One of the things that's made it look kind of strange is is that the Muslims have built a wall right across the top and this is this is probably only 20 years old.

41:18 It's it's not an ancient wall at all, but it kind of disfigures the hill for for the way that we might like to look at it. So over here, this is a picture that was was taken in the early nineteen hundreds and it's a little clear here, the eyes and the nose and I would say there's obviously been some some erosion from wind storms on on the side here and so it's to be a little less. I saw another picture that looked that looked that you could see it a lot easier. So probably if you if you got the picture just right with the shadows just right on it, that it would show up a little bit more plainly for you. So so anyway, one of the things that surprised us was the statement made that that in all probability, the Lord Jesus was crucified down below the cliff.

42:19 I suppose, maybe right up in here, I'm not sure whether that's too steep or not, but but but that was the the the opinion of the guide was that probably down here at the bottom and also part of the Roman effort was to make it as scary as possible. It was a warning to others not not to fool with the Roman government. So so the Lord Jesus, just try in your mind to picture a cross here, and across on either side with a with a criminal on it, and the Lord Jesus hanging there for for what I'm gonna do, and I know I'm just about out of time, but I want to just read the story quickly out of Matthew. We had a nice little talk on part of the story this morning in the breaking of bread, and thank you for that. This is Matthew chapter 27.

43:20 Matthew 27 verse 32 verse 31, and and when they had mocked him, they took the robe off of him, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to be crucified. Now as they came out, they found the man of Cyrene, Simon by name, whom they compelled to bear his cross. And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, place of a skull, they gave him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when he had tasted it, he would not drink. Then they crucified him and divided his garments, casting lots that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet.

43:57 They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Sitting down, they kept watch over him there, and they put up over his head the accusation written against him. This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right, another on the left, and those that passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, you who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself. If you are the son of God, come down from the cross.

44:27 Likewise, the chief priest also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, he saved others himself he cannot save. If he's the king of Israel, let him not come down from the cross and we will believe him. He trusted in God. Let him deliver him now if he will have him. For he said, I am the son of God.

44:43 Even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing. Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is, my God, my God, why has... Why have you forsaken me? Some of those who stood there when they heard that said, this man is calling for Elijah.

45:12 Immediately, one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to him to drink. The rest said, let him alone. Let's see if Elijah will come and save him. Jesus cried out again with a loud voice. We're we're told in Gospel of John that he said, it's finished.

45:31 And he yielded up the ghost, and and behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom, and the earthquake and the rocks were split. So when the centurion and those that were with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and and the things that had happened, they feared greatly saying, truly this is the son of God. So so that is that's the story of what happened to our Lord there. So so we know that that they... He was taken down.

46:38 They warned us, please don't stay in there a long time because other people need to get in. So so we passed through fairly quickly. Here is perhaps a better view of the of the door of the tomb. Obviously, there's been some damage to this tomb and there's been an attempt to repair it. Here's standing inside the tomb and looking out the door.

47:03 It was a solid moment. I I know that I I found it easy to to to look at it more technically, or not to enter into it. I know I went home that night, and Kathy could verify this, that I woke up in the middle of the night. I just woke up, and I was so grieved at my own hardness of heart that I could just look at these things and not be moved, and I began to weep, and I I wept for about fifteen minutes. I just was almost overcome, recognizing that what where I'd been, and what I'd seen, and and understanding that it was my Lord that was crucified for me.

48:05 And this huge angel just comes up, just pushes the stone out of the way, and the the soldiers that were guarding the tomb were so frightened, they just fell down on the ground. The angel says to the woman, he's not here. He's risen. And so they go inside, and and Jesus' grave clothes are laying there on the ground. He's risen from the dead.

48:29 Well, I did a little a little tabulation. I came up with, I think, 12 different times that he that he appeared in to in to one or another. One time he he appeared to 500 brethren at once. The last the last time that the Lord Jesus appeared, he... We're we're told that he was apparently he was in Jerusalem with them, and it says he went out with them as far as Bethany.

48:57 Now, where you are right here is you're up on the, you're up at a tourist outlook on on the Mount Of Olives looking down, can see the graves by the way, you can see that it is a graveyard. So we were up here and looking back. So Jesus would have walked, suppose out of Jerusalem, would have walked, winded his way up over with the disciples, ministering to them as he went, over the top of of the Mount Of Olives behind us here and and on to Bethany. And then then I'm just going to read it from the Gospel of Luke. It's four verses, and then we'll close.

49:41 Luke, the last... I think the last four verses of the Gospel of Luke. And he led them out as far as Bethany and lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to the past while he blessed them that he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.

50:06 In the in the first chapter of acts, it tells about when as as the lord Jesus just disappeared, it says a cloud received him out of their sight. So he goes up there and goes into the cloud. Suddenly, they realize they're not alone. There's two angels in fight there. And they say, the angels say to them, ye men of Jerusalem, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

50:27 This same Jesus that is taken up from you into heaven shall so come as you've seen him go. And so, he's coming back. Dear friends, he's coming back. Will you be ready? Do you know this savior as your own savior?

50:42 Have you trusted in him? He's real. You can go to these places. You can see these things. He's real.

50:49 It happened. It really happened. And we can trust in him because he's the savior that died for our sins. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the reality of of these things that that we've seen in Jerusalem.

51:07 We we we thank you, Lord, that that not only did you go and suffer for our sins, but you rose again from the dead, Lord Jesus, and you made this promise that you would come again. And we look for you, and indeed, we would answer as they did in the end of Revelation. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus. Amen.