Transcript

A team of Swiss archaeologists discovered a new tomb in the middle of the Egyptian desert. They uncovered the tomb and entered its dark cobweb-filled caverns.

After digging and digging, they reached the center of the tomb and discovered a burial chamber filled with treasures.

And at the center of the chamber, they found a sarcophagus made of pure gold. Once they opened it, they found an unnamed body, a mummy in pristine condition, surrounded by a curious combination of chocolate, hazelnuts, and wafers.

They decided to call him Pharoah Rocher.

In this episode, we’ll continue to look at the topic of why you can trust the Bible based on archaeological evidence that supports the teaching of Scripture. This kind of study is filled with the treasures of encouragement, affirmation, and comfort for our faith.

And we’ll begin a walk through the land of Israel to look at the abundant archaeological evidence that has been discovered there.

Acts 23:23-24: “And he called unto him two centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the night; And provide them beasts, that they may set Paul on, and bring him safe unto Felix the governor.”

Caesarea is a coastal city along the Mediterranean Sea in Israel. Caesarea was built by Herod I (also known as “Herod the Great”) who named it in honor of Caesar Augustus.

This was the evil Herod who tried to kill our Lord after He was born and ordered the killing of all children two years old and younger in and around Bethlehem.

In Acts 21, we read about a riot that took place in Jerusalem when Paul was falsely accused of bringing a Gentile into the temple.

Paul was taken into custody by the Roman authorities as they investigated the matter. A plot made against the life of Paul was uncovered and, for his protection, Paul was brought from Jerusalem to Caesarea under the cover of darkness with a Roman military escort.

When Paul arrived in Caesarea, he was kept for five days in the guard room attached to Governor Felix’s residence at Herod’s palace (Acts 23:35, 24:1).

You can see the ruins of Herod’s palace in Caesarea, and even see the freshwater swimming pool that was part of the palace.

Because Governor Felix hoped for money to be given to him to release Paul, he kept him in custody. Here in Caesarea, the apostle of the Gentiles was held for more than two years.

During his time in Caesarea, Paul stood before the Roman Governor Felix and then Governor Festus, who succeeded Felix. Paul at those times defended himself against the Jews accusations; “he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come” (Acts 24:25), and he spoke of his faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

After Felix was replaced by Festus, Herod Agrippa II, Roman ruler of Judea and great grandson of Herod I, came with the his sister Bernice to visit, and pay their respects to the new Governor.

Paul was brought before King Agrippa at this time and he recounted his conversion on the Damascus Road in hopes of reaching Agrippa for Christ.

When I visited Caesarea, our tour guide read this account in Acts 26 to us. It made the Scriptures come alive as we stood there feeling the breeze from the Mediterranean, hearing the waves, and seeing the very place where Paul stood before King Agrippa.

In the Book of Acts, we learn how Paul had earlier sailed from Caesarea and returned to it. And the ruins of Herod’s man-made harbor with its breakwater stones can still be seen.

The Apostle Peter also came to Caesarea to visit the Roman Centurion, Cornelius. Peter was shown, first by his vision of the great sheet containing all manner of animals to eat, and then by being led to enter the home of an unclean Gentile to share Christ (Acts 10:17- 33), that what was considered unclean in the past was no longer unclean.

This is a pivotal account in the Book of Acts, showing that God’s dealings with mankind were changing from law to grace, from prophecy to the mystery, from Israel to the Gentiles.

In Caesarea, the “Pilate Stone” was found in 1961. A replica of it is on display there.

One author wrote, “While clearing away the sand and overgrowth from the jumbled ruins of an ancient Roman theater, they [or archaeologists] unearthed a limestone block with a first-century Latin inscription that mentioned, “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.

The artifact is significant because the “inscription confirmed that Pontius Pilate was a real person and that he had the authority (as Prefect) to condemn or pardon.”

This 1st-Century Roman stone is extrabiblical proof of the existence of Pontius Pilate. We don’t need these types of discoveries to know that Pilate existed or that our Bible is true, but they are faith-affirming and encouraging. And all of Israel is like that.

All the biblical sites, cities, valleys, mountains, rivers, and archaeological finds combine in an overwhelming volume of proof of the truth and accuracy of God’s Word, and they demonstrate why you can trust the Bible.

1 Kings 18:20-21: “So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.

“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”

Mount Carmel is not far from Caesarea. Elijah had a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The terms of the showdown were for two bulls to be killed and cut up and placed on wood, without any human help in lighting the fire, the deity that responded in sending fire upon the slaughtered bull would be proven to be the true God.

The prophets of Baal cried out to their god, leaped on the sacrifice, even cut themselves, all to no avail. Elijah repaired an altar of the Lord on the mount, and put twelve stones around the altar representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

He dug a trench, arranged the wood, cut up the bullock, and directed that four barrels of water be poured over the sacrifice and the wood three times.

Then Elijah prayed to the true and the living God, the response was immediate, and a consuming fire fell from heaven and consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and the water in the trench (1 Kings 18:19-39).

It was special to stand in the place where Elijah took a stand for the LORD. He was outnumbered 450 to 1, but with God on his side, he was a victorious majority.

After the contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah had these false prophets taken to the base of the mount to the “brook Kishon” and slain. And you can see that brook at the base of Mount Carmel.

Following this, Elijah sat down “and put his face between his knees” (1 Kings 18:42). He then told his servant to check the horizon and look to the Mediterranean Sea. The servant told Elijah that he didn’t see anything (v. 43).

Elijah told him to go back seven times, and on the seventh check a small rain cloud was seen in the distance. It was the size of a man’s hand (v. 44). After not raining for seven years, it was a raincloud that brought “a great rain” to Israel (v. 45).

What fascinated me was that, standing on Mount Carmel, you could look out and see the Mediterranean Sea, and easily picture where the cloud like a man’s hand was seen in the distance. In every way, the Scriptures are accurate and true!

Revelation 16:16: “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”

The city of Megiddo sits on a large mound. The large, fertile plain before it is the valley of Jezreel, also known as the valley of Megiddo.

The valley is roughly 145 square miles in size. It is bounded on the north by the Nazareth mountains and Mount Tabor, on the east by the Jordan Valley and Mount Gilboa, on the south by the mountains of Samaria, and on the west by the Mount Carmel range.

In Israel’s history, on this broad plain that stands before Megiddo, numerous battles took place: Deborah and Barak defeated Sisera and his Canaanite army (Judges 4-5); Gideon and his 300 drove off the 135,000 man Midianite and Amalekite armies (Judges 7); and an Egyptian army killed Josiah, King of Judah (2 Kings 23:29).

Also, here on the plain before the city of Megiddo sixty miles north of Jerusalem, and then stretching down to Jerusalem, the vast army of the Anti-Christ will gather at the end of the Tribulation period for the battle of Armageddon.

“Armageddon” is a Hebrew word. “Har” in Hebrew means mountain, and “Mageddon” is the name of the place. “Armageddon” means Mount Megiddo.

When the children of Israel invaded the Promised Land under Joshua, they did not drive the Canaanites out of Megiddo (Josh. 17:11-12).

Many ruins from the time of the Canaanites have been unearthed in Megiddo, including a large altar used for their pagan idol worship.

And as I walked among the ruins in Megiddo, I came upon a stone manger, which reminded me of the type of manger that the Lord was likely laid in when He was born.

Near Megiddo, while digging in the yard of a maximum-security prison, a man discovered a 16 x 32 mosaic floor from one of the oldest Christian churches ever discovered.

The floor bore an inscription mentioning that the building had been built in the memory of “the God Jesus Christ.” From the coins and pottery fragments found at the site, the place of worship has been dated to around AD 230.

The discovery is an extrabiblical proof of the fact that Christ existed and it showed that early Christians believed that Jesus is God.

Luke 4:16-21: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

“And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

Nazareth sits on top of a mountain. Nazareth, of course, was where Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her about giving birth to the Messiah (Luke 1:26,27), and it is where the Lord was raised and grew up.

Many believe the word “Nazareth” comes from the Hebrew word netser, which means offshoot.

The Hebrew term netser was used for the offshoots of trees, and we saw examples of this growing beside olive trees in Israel.

Its biblical significance is that the Offshoot, the righteous Branch of David and King of Israel, lived and was raised in Nazareth, and as Isaiah 11:1 says, “And there shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch [or netser] shall grow out of his roots.”

In Nazareth, we saw a re-creation of a synagogue from the time of Christ. This immediately brought Luke 4 to my mind, when the Lord stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth and read from Isaiah 61:1-2 and He rightly divided the Word!

The Lord read about the Messiah and how He would preach the gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

The Lord then closed the book, gave it again to the minister, and sat down (v. 20), and told those present, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (v. 21).

The Lord rightly divided the Word when He closed the book, because the next part of Isaiah 61:2 says, “…and the day of vengeance of our God,” which speaks of the Lord’s Second Coming. But it was not time for this yet. What the Lord read was truth for them in the present, at that time. The last part of that verse was truth for the future.

And that’s what we do when we rightly divide the Word, we are applying the truth of God’s Word that He has for us today under grace found in Paul’s letters.

The people of His hometown rejected the Lord and the truth that He was their Messiah. They were filled with wrath at Him claiming to be the Messiah and the fulfillment of that prophecy, and thus they led Him to the brow of a hill to throw Him off of it, but the Lord miraculously passed through their midst, and left them.

I stood on the outer edge of Nazareth on the mountainside, and it had a VERY steep drop. I’m not comfortable with heights and it made me feel uneasy.

Anyone thrown off that cliff would certainly die. And that’s what those in Nazareth fully intended; they meant to kill the Lord. But the point is that the terrain and steep cliff I saw verified the truth of Scripture, and showed that you can trust the Bible.

Matthew 4:18-20: “And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.”

At nearly 700 feet below sea level, the Sea of Galilee is the lowest freshwater lake on earth, and the second lowest lake in the world after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake.

The Sea of Galilee is a natural, quiet, and serene place. It is a very special place to visit. One thing you won’t learn from the Scriptures though about the Sea of Galilee is that there are mosquitoes of Biblical proportions there!

According to the Word, much of the Lord’s earthly ministry took place around the Sea of Galilee. And as I sat by the water on multiple occasions thinking and praying, things kept hitting me as I remembered the events and accounts that occurred there. Then I would look up the Scriptures and read them.

I sat on the southern shore and looking across the lake to the other side to where Capernaum and Bethsaida were, I recalled how that was the shore where the Lord called Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow Him.

I looked across the lake also thinking of how the Lord fed the 5000 on one of those hills, taught the Sermon on the Mount on another of the hills, how He went all over that area teaching the Word and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and that He went up to one of the mountains that surround the Sea of Galilee to pray.

Then as I sat there thinking, it occurred to me that this was one of the places that the Lord appeared after He rose again! Peter and six of the other disciples had gone fishing (John 21:2). After a full night of fishing they had caught nothing.

In the morning, they saw a Man on the shore (v. 4). He called out and asked them if they had caught anything. “They answered Him, No” (v. 5). He told them to cast their net on the right side of the boat. When they did, their net filled with fish (v. 6).

This immediately triggered John’s memory how the Lord did this three years previous when He called them to follow Him, and John knew at that moment that the One on the shore was the Lord.

When John told Peter, “It is the Lord,” Peter impulsively threw himself into the sea to swim to the Lord, and get to Him as quickly as possible. Peter’s anxiousness to get to Him reminds you of the blessing it will be to meet the Lord and be with Him for eternity.

The Sea of Galilee is a peaceful place. The water was very still in the mornings when I was there. Looking at the still water makes one think of how the Lord calmed that sea and stilled that water twice during His earthly ministry.

Once, when He was asleep on a pillow in the back of the boat during a great storm, the disciples feared for their lives. They woke Him up saying, “Master, carest Thou not that we perish?” Then the Lord stood up “and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (v. 39).

This made me think of what that meant to me personally, how the Lord gives us His peace which passes all understanding during our storms of life too.

After Christ calmed the sea, they crossed to the other side to the country of the Gadarenes, where the Lord met the crazed man who was possessed by a legion of demons.

I looked to my right from the southern shore, and I was looking at the very area where that account took place.

The Lord, having authority over all those demons, cast them out of this man into a herd of pigs. The pigs then “ran violently down a steep place into the sea…and were choked in the sea” (Mark 5:13). And you can see a number of steep places in that area where those pigs could have fallen into the sea.

This man who had the legion of demons once had no rest and no peace. He had been a screaming, self-cutting, sleepless, naked, uncontrollable, crazed maniac, but after his deliverance by Christ, Scripture states that,

“And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid” (Mark 5:15).

Christ brought peace to the Sea, then He brought peace to a person. And it reminds you of the peace of being in Christ’s presence in heaven.

The Messiah must have power over material creation and power over the supernatural realm. Because He will alter the creation, causing the desert to blossom like a rose, and the wolf to dwell with the lamb. And the Messiah will cast Satan and his host into the bottomless pit for 1000 years when He establishes His kingdom.

Those back-to-back accounts in Mark which demonstrate His authority over creation and over demons, prove beyond a doubt that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah and God’s Son. And that is what they had to believe under the terms of the gospel of the kingdom in the past.

Our tour group took a one-hour boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Being in Israel you constantly think about being in the footsteps of the Lord.

And it struck me that, even while I was on the Sea of Galilee, I was in the footsteps of Christ, because Christ walked on that water! To walk on water was something so easy for our Savior to do as God and the Creator of all things.

The Sea of Galilee is a real place that you can see and visit. Everything about it matches up with the teaching of Scriptures, which demonstrates that you can trust the Bible.

Mark 16:9: “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.”

Magdala is a city along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, very near to Capernaum. Mary Magdalene, out of whom the Lord had cast seven devils, was from Magdala. Mary was a Magdalene.

There are many ruins from the time of Christ in Mary’s hometown: The ruins of homes, the marketplace, and storage rooms.

We also saw a synagogue in Magdala that had been discovered. We observed a couple of archaeologists working on it very methodically and carefully while we were there.

This synagogue in Galilee immediately reminded me of passages about the Lord teaching in the synagogues throughout this region:

Matthew 4:23 teaches, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom….” It’s probable that the Lord taught in this very synagogue, and preached the gospel of the kingdom.

In September 2009, in the center of that synagogue in Magdala, was found one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Israel’s history. A stone block was unearthed carved with symbols of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is known as the Magdala Stone.

The stone dates to before the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.

Thus, when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see.

The front of the stone features the oldest representation of the seven-branched menorah ever found. And the tripod, triangular base on the candlestick indicates the likelihood that the artist actually saw the golden candlestick in the Temple. The menorah is flanked by two jars, probably representing the water and oil used in the Temple.

Along the two sides of the stone are carved four pillared archways portraying the Temple’s walls and passageways. In one of the arches an oil lamp is carved, which portrays walking through the arches and into the temple which was illuminated by oil lamps.

On the back of the stone, two wheels are carved and are suspended in the air with triangular shapes underneath, likely representing fire.

The wheels are interpreted as the bottom of the chariot which symbolizes God’s throne.

The fiery chariot-throne in Ezekiel 1 and 10 is the basis for this belief, and is why this is thought to represent God’s presence dwelling both in the Temple and in the heavens.

With this being on the back of the stone, it’s also believed to be depicting the Holy of holies in the temple, since the most holy place was also in the back of the Temple.

This “Magdala Stone” is believed to be the earliest known artistic depiction of the second temple. It is a kind of ancient snapshot, and it creates a special connection between the past and present.

This stone confirms the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem which confirms the teaching of the Bible.

But again, we don’t need these evidences outside of the Bible to know that the Bible is true. For those of us who trust it and know that it is God’s Word, these kind of things are interesting, but not surprising. God is faithful and He cannot lie. Thus, we know that everything the Scripture teaches is the absolute truth and that it is trustworthy.

So when the Scriptures tell us that we have the sure hope of eternal life by faith alone in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, we know that is the truth. And for those of us who have trusted Christ, we know we are heaven-bound.