The Land of the Bible (3D Bible Part 5)

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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of

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Israel.

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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through

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the most exciting book on the planet.

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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes, which will deepen your faith and bring the

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Bible to life.

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And now, here's our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there.

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This is the 3D Bible, part 5 on the land of the Bible.

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So for those of you who have joined me today, first of all, I want to congratulate you because

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we have done the heavy lifting in parts 1 through 4.

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And I know that for some of you, I may have lost you.

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Others of you, you may have been bored.

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But we had to lay that firm foundation for understanding our Bible.

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So congratulations from here.

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It's a little bit easier.

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You know, I just want to review what we've learned so far.

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We've learned how the Bible is so alive and powerful and why it's so important that we

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learn how to read it and to study it and spend time in it.

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And learning the story of the Bible is absolutely essential to that.

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And I know that last week, the talk about the Old Testament, for some of you, it's not

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an issue.

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For others of you, it was very important to lay the foundation of how we should approach

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the Old Testament.

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And so where do we go from here?

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Well, today we're going to talk about the land of the Bible.

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Next time we'll talk about the people of the Bible and then the God of the Bible and wrap

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it up with how this all relates to you.

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Now on the land of the Bible, we're going to talk about the land of Canaan.

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Where is it?

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Why did God choose it?

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How did God use it?

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What is the land a type or a shadow of for us as Christians?

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And what can we learn from the land?

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So let me just back up.

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We talked previously about God's plan to redeem the world, that that's the story that's

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driving the Bible, and central to that plan, of course, is the Jewish people.

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And central to God's covenant with the Jewish people was this piece of land.

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Now why did they need land?

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Why was it a part of God's covenant with Abraham?

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Well, people need a land if they're going to become a nation.

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Can you imagine if one of Abraham's children had ended up out in, let's say, Asia and another

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one ended up in Europe and another one down in Arabia, they would have never formed any

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kind of peoplehood or nationhood.

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So people need a land on which that they would multiply, they would build their culture,

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their language, their institutions, their practices, their beliefs, their society, and

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that makes them a nation.

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So land was very, very important in the building of the nation, and God promised Abraham, he

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said, I'm going to make you a great nation.

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And through that time of nationhood, of course, God had an eternal plan, and through that

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nation he established the kingdom of David, which we will come back to at a later time.

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So this land also, I liken it as a stage.

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It's a place from which God was going to do his great works.

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I mean, God needed a people to work through, and he needed a place to do these things.

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So, but now why would God choose this land of Canaan?

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What did that mean?

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Well, it meant that it was the land that had been inhabited by the descendants of Canaan.

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So they were known as Canaanites.

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Canaan was one of the sons of Ham, one of the sons of Noah.

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So the Canaanites dwelt in that land, and it was therefore called the land of Canaan.

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What's so interesting is that when God chose this land, later in Second Chronicles, he

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refers to the land as his land.

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So he not only chose it for this purpose and for this people, but he considered it his

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land.

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He had every right to do with it what he wanted to.

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And it's interesting that not only did God choose the land of Canaan, so let me back

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up.

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He talks to this man named Abram, and he says, follow me to a land that I will show

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you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you.

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And so Abram packs up, and he leaves, and he follows the Lord, and he comes to this

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land of Canaan.

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And then God tells him, this is the land that I'm going to give to you and to your descendants.

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And he actually cut a covenant with Abraham as proof that one day his descendants would

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inherit this land.

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So it's the land that God chose for Abraham and for his descendants and for the great

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acts that God was going to do in the earth.

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It's interesting that he also chose the city of Jerusalem.

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You know, in Deuteronomy, when the Israelites are in the wilderness and God is giving them

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the law and telling them how to worship and giving them all of his legal requirements

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in there, he said seven different times.

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And when you go to worship in the place that I will choose, do this and that.

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Seven times, he said, and when you go to the place that I will choose.

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You know, it was almost 400 years later that God revealed the place he chose for them to

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go up and to worship him was Jerusalem.

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And Solomon in 2 Chronicles 6, he says that God told my father David that he had chosen

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Jerusalem.

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And when Solomon then built the great temple there in Jerusalem, God speaks to Solomon

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and he says, I have chosen this place.

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And he says, my heart and will always be towards this place.

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So there's something to be said for what God chooses.

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And for some of us, that's all you need to know.

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God chose it, that's it.

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But others of you have little questions like me and it's sort of like, well, why there?

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Why that piece of land?

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And you know, the Bible doesn't tell us why that piece of land.

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But you know, many Sunday school teachers have said that the land was very strategic

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because it is actually located as somewhat of a bridge between three different continents,

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Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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That's one of the reasons it was taken over by so many armies throughout the years as

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one invading army coming from the north, the next one coming from the south, the Greeks

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coming from the west.

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It was always being invaded by somebody on their way somewhere.

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But it is true that by all of this happening in this piece of land that the word may have

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spread more easily throughout the world.

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And especially during the Roman Empire, the life of Jesus, it would have spread easily

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throughout the Roman Empire.

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So there's something to be said for that.

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Maybe it was because it was strategically located.

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You know, I think that there's also possibility of a bit of a mysterious reason here.

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Now the Bible doesn't tell us this, so you can take it or leave it.

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But nobody knows where the Garden of Eden was really located.

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The description of where the Garden of Eden was located describes four rivers.

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Two of them we know where they are, but the other two were not quite sure where they are

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or where they were then.

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And it's a very good possibility that the Garden of Eden, the description of these rivers,

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was from a time when the land masses were closer together.

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You know, there's a, you can look up a map of the world before the continents kind of

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drifted apart.

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And maybe that with a description such as that, that the Garden of Eden actually was

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in this location.

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And it's very interesting that during the time of Abraham when he comes into this land,

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he runs into this mysterious priest and king, Melchizedek, who was in the ancient city of

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Jerusalem at that time.

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And he was worshiping the one true God there.

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And he comes out and he greets Abraham.

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You may remember this story.

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And it's like, who is Melchizedek and where did he come from?

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He's here in the heart of the land in the city of Jerusalem, worshiping the one true

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God.

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So there seems to be some eternal purpose in this land that the Bible just doesn't explain

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and it doesn't tell us about.

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But you know, the city of Jerusalem, God chose it saying that he had put his name there.

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And if you look at the topography of the city of Jerusalem, it's got three valleys

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that come together in just the way of the Hebrew letter Sheen.

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And the Hebrew letter Sheen is the letter that stands for God's name.

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It stands for the word name.

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So Hashem or Shem means name and that starts with the letter Sheen.

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But so does Shaddai.

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And the high priest considered it to be for the name of God.

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And when they do the priestly blessing over the people, they would actually raise their

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hands in such a way as to be the letter Sheen.

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And this is written into the topography of the city of Jerusalem.

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So quite literally, the name of God is in that place.

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Very interesting.

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The Bible doesn't explain these things.

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But I like to bring it out because I do believe that there's an eternal significance to that

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area, to that land and to the city of Jerusalem.

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So now how did God use the land in the life of his children?

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And it's very, very interesting how that the land became something that God promised

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to Abraham and he promised it to the children of Israel that this was their inheritance,

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this was their land.

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But yet it required faith for them to enter the land.

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And more than faith, it required them to be totally prepared that they understood how

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they were supposed to live once they entered the land.

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And so in the wilderness wanderings, we have the twelve spies that go in to spy out the

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land before they go in to take it.

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And ten of them came back with a negative report and said, oh my, the land is full of

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giants.

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And two came back and said, but our God is greater.

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We can do it.

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We can take the land.

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And of course, because of the unbelief of the majority, there was a forty-year period of

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wandering in the desert until those had died out and the ones that were of faith remained.

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And Joshua, the man of faith, was the one to lead them into the land and to take it.

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But faith was required or else they never would have entered the land.

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They would have stayed where they thought it was safe, where God was giving their manna

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every day.

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The land was a bit of a testing for them.

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And even though they knew that it was full, it was a land of milk and honey, flowing with

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milk and honey, the milk probably from abundance of goats in the land at the time.

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It wouldn't probably have been cows and livestock, but it would have been goats.

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And the honey, not from the bee, probably maybe date honey or even fig honey.

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But it implied an abundance.

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And this was the land that God had promised them.

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Such wonderful promises, such a rich land of abundance.

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But it required faith for them to enter it because there were also difficulties.

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There were giants in the land.

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And when you go with me to Israel, and we're going to go down to the Jordan River to the

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place where the Israelites crossed over right before they took Jericho and then the rest

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of the land.

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And when you stand there and you look from the River Jordan to the land that they were

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about to take, all you see is a big line of cliffs, rocky, barren, dry cliffs.

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And here this people had wandered for 40 years in the barren, rocky, dry wilderness and their

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face with these mountains.

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It had to have been very intimidating and very daunting.

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And it required faith to keep going and pushing in.

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But once they got through that hard beginning, they would get into the lush and the more

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abundant part of the country.

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So the land took faith, but it also took obedience because this was God's land.

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And he told them that when you are in the land, you are to do this and this and you

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are to obey and you're to walk righteously before me.

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And if you go after other gods, if you turn from me, if you don't walk in obedience, then

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you will be kicked out of the land, it will be over because the land in a way was where

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the presence of God was.

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This is where they were going to live in the presence of God.

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And if they turned against that presence and they offended it, then they might as well

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be kicked out of the land because it was reserved for people of faith that wanted to walk in

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fellowship with their God.

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Now as Christians now today, we look back and you may have heard the term types and

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shadows.

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And when we look at the Old Testament, we see a lot of things that in the natural was

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a type or a shadow of some spiritual principle that would come later.

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There's many types and shadows in the Old Testament that really predict the coming of

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Jesus in his life.

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But when it comes to the land, I see the land as a type and a shadow actually of our life

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with God.

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You could say after salvation that we have this land that God has given us these wonderful

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promises and through Yeshua, which is another pronunciation of Joshua, we're able to enter

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the land.

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It takes faith for us to go in and actually take possession of everything that Yeshua

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has won for us, that Jesus won for us on the cross.

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So it's a very interesting type and shadow of the salvation and of our need of faith

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and then also of our need of obedience and of walking in fellowship with God in order

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to enjoy the abundance of our great salvation that he has won for us.

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You know, also the land of Israel, I see it as a little bit of like a microcosm of the

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world.

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The land is so full of contrast.

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It almost has a little bit of everything from around the world, not entirely, but almost.

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And what do I mean by that?

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I'm talking about the geography of the land.

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So if you go to the back of your Bible, you will undoubtedly find a few maps.

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There's almost always a map back there of the tribes of Israel and it shows the different

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territories in the land that the tribes went in to take.

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And so if you have that map, look at it.

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If you don't have that map, and usually you'll have a map of the land during the time of

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Jesus, so you can use that map as well.

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But both of them, it shows you the land of Canaan or what we would call today the land

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of Israel.

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Up at the very top of your map, you'll probably see the city of Damascus, which today is in

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Syria.

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And right to the left of Damascus, between Damascus and the ocean, you may see on your

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map Mount Hermon.

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Now, Mount Hermon is the highest point in Israel.

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It is such a high mountain that it actually has snow and they have a ski lift up there.

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And you can go in the winter, you can go up at the top of Mount Hermon and you can ski.

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So it's very cold, it's very high.

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Just a little bit below Mount Hermon, you would have the mountains of the Golan Heights

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or over closer to the ocean, the mountains that are an extension of Lebanon.

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If you go down in the middle of those mountains, there's the Hula Valley, you may see Lake

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Hula on your map.

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And that's lush farmland in that area.

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And then you'll see the Sea of Galilee, a little bit south, you'll see the Sea of Galilee.

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And then you'll see the Jordan River running south from the Sea of Galilee all the way down

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to another sea called the Dead Sea.

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That is actually the lowest point on the earth.

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The Sea of Galilee is the lowest freshwater sea or lake on the earth and the Dead Sea is

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the lowest point on the earth.

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Why?

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Because that valley is actually a rift between the African Plate and the Asian Plate and

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it's where it's a gap between those two continental plates and that's why it is the lowest place

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on earth.

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So from there you look to the left and you have these mountains and hills before you

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get to Jerusalem, you'll see Jerusalem on your map.

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Between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea is what is called the Wilderness.

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And I tell you, it is such barren, rocky desert.

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Nothing grows there.

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Sometimes in the springtime they'll have a rain and there will actually be blooms in

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that.

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And over the time it is just barren, rocky cliffs and mountains and hills.

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It's one of my most favorite plates of the country.

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It's so barren, it's so majestic.

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It's so different from anything that I've ever lived around in the United States.

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And then of course you have the City of Jerusalem which is right at the edge of that barren wilderness

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and then the rolling hillside that goes down to the valley to the Mediterranean Sea.

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So all of these contrasts in this small little land, it only takes you an hour and a half

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to drive from the Mediterranean Sea up to the mountains through Jerusalem into that

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barren wasteland and then down to the lowest place on earth at the Jordan River.

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It's nothing, it's such a small land.

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It takes less than eight hours to drive all the way from Mount Hermon down to the south

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of the country.

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And yet you go through these amazing landscapes.

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So I see it as a little bit of a microcosm of the earth.

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The Israeli people themselves are like a microcosm of all the peoples of the earth.

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They're from all ethnicities.

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We're going to talk about them more next time.

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But it's just such a fascinating place.

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And to me it's almost like it's just a little taste of the earth and of all the peoples

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in the earth.

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It's a type and a shadow in a way.

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You know, spiritually as I said, the land of Canaan can be seen as our salvation.

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The land of Canaan can be seen as just a microcosm of the earth that the Lord came that He loves.

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And then He came to save.

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And so this is one of the things that makes the Bible so exciting.

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There are so many layers of meaning.

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So we can look first at the obvious physical natural meaning of the land and of the people,

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what it means.

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And then you can look for all of the spiritual significance of it.

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The things that we can learn as Christians and apply to our lives.

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And that's what makes the Bible so rich.

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It's not just a story.

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It's an eternal story.

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It's a story that speaks to hearts and has spiritual meaning way beyond the physical

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story.

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So God is working in the natural at the same time He's working in the spiritual.

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And there's so many spiritual lessons for us to learn from this.

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The land, the promised land is His land.

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And it's the place that He chose and placed His name.

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And it's a place where it's abundance of His presence and His blessings.

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But it requires faith to enter and to take possession of all what He's given us.

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And if we're obedient, we can enjoy the fullness and the good of the land.

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That is the meaning, just scratching the surface of the land of Canaan, the land of Israel,

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the land that He chose, and the land of the Bible.

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So in today's show notes, we have linked to a cute little video.

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It was produced by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism.

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It just gives you an overview of the land and you can see all these contrasts plus

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the ancient and the modern, the modern cities, the archeological sites, and all of the geography

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of the land.

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We're going to play it now and you can go into the show notes and link to that video

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to watch it.

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So, look forward to being back with you next time when we're going to talk about the people

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of the Bible, both Jews and Christians.

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So look forward to seeing you then.

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God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube, or

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wherever you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA, All Rights Reserved.