Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 206. Is Israel Safe?

Transcript

206. Is Israel Safe? · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:00
For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt,
0:03
not for Pharisee. Grace, lift the flame now I'm
0:07
puffing. Peace signals and victory
0:09
justified. Released.
0:12
Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
0:15
This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
0:18
everyday Christians with everyday issues.
0:21
I ain't. Saved by dress codes, not by
0:23
what I eat. I'm covered in the
0:25
righteousness. Washed from head to feet.
0:27
No tally of tradition, No man made code.
0:30
Blood bought my freedom. Now I ride that road.
0:32
They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise.
0:35
But my prey still ascends past the legalist cries.
0:38
Christ plus nothing. That's the real math.
0:40
So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path.
0:44
He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with Saints.
0:46
Slipping grace from the bottle, No room for face.
0:48
I like one for liberty. Toast to the king.
0:51
Every ash of sermon. Death has lost its sting.
0:55
For freedom He set me free, Not for change, not for guilt, not
0:58
for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now puffing
1:02
peace, cigars and victory justified, released.
1:05
For freedom, He set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not
1:09
for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame now puffing
1:12
peace, cigars and victory justified, released.
1:16
Let grace begin for fruit on me, Let me free.
1:19
Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
1:22
Grace, let the flame. Now here are your hosts, Victor
1:26
James, Seyfried and Brett Martin.
1:28
Bogartov, Bogartov, this is from Israel and we this is for
1:34
Freedom podcast and we are, man, we just come back from Israel.
1:38
Man, we had a great time and man, it was great and I'm glad
1:43
to be back in the studio recording for Freedom Podcast
1:47
with James. James, have things been since
1:50
you've been back? Brett, I just have one question
1:52
for you. Do you want the scarf for $20?
1:55
Just the best. Best scarf?
1:57
Best scarf in town. 3 for 22 for 10. 2 for 10/3 for 20.
2:02
Great time man. We we landed in Jerusalem and a
2:06
guy hit us up and every time we have gotten offer on our bus he
2:10
has found us so. Now he come to our hotel.
2:14
He saw us at the Mount of Olives two or three times.
2:17
We saw him. Everywhere and he one time or
2:21
almost every time he has got onto the bus walking up and down
2:24
the aisles trying to sell off these scarves.
2:28
He he was selling them $20 a first day and this last day he
2:32
got on and he was selling us 4 for 20.
2:35
So we went from one for 20 to 4 for 20.
2:38
Yeah, it's the more. People that bought them for $20,
2:41
like, well, what happened to me, How come I had to pay 20?
2:44
It's like, oh, those are embroidered.
2:46
Those are more expensive. They're embroidered, Yeah.
2:49
Yeah, So it was great. But we're here, we're going to
2:52
get to the end of the episode and and talk about is Israel
2:56
safe? But we want to just sort of walk
2:58
through our journey that we've gotten to so far.
3:01
We, we landed, we went to the Sea of Galilee and we went to
3:07
most sites that we've been before.
3:09
Expanded teacher. We've got a different guide this
3:11
year, which man, my mind has been blown with the different
3:15
amount of information that he's given us.
3:17
But we went to Magdala, which if you remember when we talked
3:21
about Israel before, Magdala was one of those great sites, 1st
3:25
century synagogue. The Scripture song scroll was
3:29
found there intact and had a lot of great things.
3:34
We were about to leave Brett and tell us about the guy who we're
3:38
going to have on the podcast, Rabbi Kelly.
3:41
He's a Catholic priest. Tell us about Kelly.
3:45
Father Kelly. Father Kelly.
3:46
Yeah, Father Kelly. So this is our little bit of
3:50
experience from the last time we were at Magdalene.
3:53
We got off the bus, we walked around, we saw the synagogue,
3:57
which was great, and we saw a couple little things.
4:01
We saw some mikvahs and things like that, and it was great and
4:05
awesome. This is a synagogue floor that
4:08
Jesus walked on. He stood on, He taught in this
4:11
synagogue. Wonderful.
4:13
And then we left. Not so this time.
4:16
This time we saw the synagogue. We're getting ready to leave.
4:20
And then here comes this Catholic priest.
4:23
He's Irish. His name is Father Kelly and you
4:27
know, he he got onto my wife for talking that was funny.
4:30
And then we, he took us on a journey and he told us about
4:37
the, you know, our guy. He said our guy gave us the
4:41
Jewish perspective and now he's going to give the Christian
4:44
perspective. And this guy, he's used to
4:47
dealing with interfaith. So he didn't like harp on
4:50
Catholic stuff, you know, And man, we learned so much.
4:54
He brought us in a center behind the hotel and he taught us so
5:00
much about the site he showed us.
5:04
The other synagogue gets right across the street behind a a bus
5:08
stop, which means that Magdala was bigger than we thought.
5:11
We thought it was just some tiny little podunk town.
5:14
But you know, when you have two synagogues within throwing
5:18
distance of each other, what does that tell you about the
5:21
size of the city that that maybe it was it was a first synagogue
5:26
and they had a split one across street and came second
5:29
synagogue. Whatever you want.
5:31
But man, he, he did a great job, very emotional.
5:36
And he then he agreed to be on the podcast and I am really
5:40
looking forward to to him coming on.
5:44
But it was just a great experience all around.
5:46
I know you mentioned the boat ride.
5:49
It was really cool that we got on the boat at the Sea of
5:51
Galilee, took us around way longer than last time.
5:56
But he actually took us to Tiberius and took us to our
5:59
hotel, dropped us off at a port right outside our hotel in in
6:05
Tiberius. We stayed a different hotel from
6:07
last time and our bus met us there with our stuff.
6:10
And so listen, it was a Galilee was was great.
6:14
It was. It was wonderful.
6:15
Yeah, it was a great time. I, I really just, again, I loved
6:18
the teaching of Father Kelly. Even though it's Catholic, he
6:22
does a devotion every morning on the Sea of Galilee, like 5 to 7
6:26
minutes. He's got an intern that's at
6:28
this from Winston who's been he's living there for three
6:31
months and we're going to coordinate a time for him to
6:33
come on the podcast, share some of the they're still doing digs
6:37
constantly. And one of my favorite things as
6:41
we're talking about Magdala was the Chapel that we went to and
6:45
the importance that it put on women in ministry and women's
6:49
role in Jesus's ministry. He asked the question, how many
6:53
of us in in our room, and maybe you're listening and you can ask
6:56
yourself this, how many of the people in our room were were one
7:01
or influenced by their mother in their life and every single one
7:05
of us. My mother led me to the Lord.
7:08
Mothers are massive influences in our life.
7:10
And this whole church was dedicated to Mary Magdalene.
7:15
A couple of the ladies there mentioned in Scripture that
7:17
helped fundraise for Jesus and fund his ministry.
7:21
And there were columns that had their names on it.
7:24
And there was one empty column. And he said, does anyone know
7:28
what name is on this column? And he pointed to each of our
7:32
ladies and he said, it's your name, it's your name, it's your
7:36
name. You are the one that's on this
7:38
column that's to reach the next people that are around us.
7:41
And oftentimes in ministry, women can be feeling like a
7:45
second rate citizen. But it is shows the importance
7:49
of what women have in their life.
7:50
And we're talking to Johnny Nicks, who's here with us and
7:54
may have him on the podcast here soon, But he was we're, we're
7:58
talking just about the lack of male leadership in our, in our
8:02
Christian Church these days. And it's sad that even 2000
8:05
years ago, right, Timothy, he had his grandmother Lois and his
8:09
mother Eunice, who raised him and loved him and cared for him.
8:13
And there was no father or grandfather in the picture.
8:16
And how would that have been even different if a male
8:19
influence other than Paul would have been there?
8:22
And it just changed my perspective a little bit as we
8:25
were there, as we're hanging out, One of the things, Brett,
8:28
that that I loved as we went to the different sites, all tourism
8:33
has come back. All the flights are opened up.
8:36
But people are still scared. Scared to come, right?
8:39
Yeah. IO is begging us.
8:41
Please bring more people. Please bring more people.
8:44
I'll give you a quick fact. In the year 2019 to 2020, from
8:48
the month of November to February, before the pandemic
8:51
happened in 2020, Paris told me they had 195 tours in a four
8:59
month period. And she said we're lucky to get
9:03
three or four a month right now. And so the the amount of tourism
9:07
is down. And we saw this in the Galilee.
9:09
We'd pull up to a stop and I was like, man, I remember pulling up
9:12
to Capernaum and there were like 14 buses in a row.
9:15
And we had an exact time frame. We walked in, we had three
9:18
minutes at the synagogue and two minutes in Peter's house.
9:22
And we saw a couple of the things while we were doing some
9:24
teaching. And then we had to hurry up and
9:26
rush out. Brett, we got there and there's
9:28
not a bus insight. We walked the entire Capernaum.
9:33
No one was there the entire time we were there.
9:37
We had the entire place ourself. We're taking pictures.
9:39
We're loving it. We're having a great time.
9:40
We didn't feel rushed. So that's part of the great
9:43
thing right now. But the economy and the people
9:47
are just starving without tourism.
9:50
And so it has been safe. And we'll give some more
9:53
illustrations about that. But Brett, let's transition to a
9:57
couple of new places that we went.
10:00
We went to Shiloh. Shiloh, the the place of the
10:03
Tabernacle. Last time we went pouring now
10:06
rain, completely covered in mud. We're trying to find shelter
10:10
everywhere we can. This time it was clear and we
10:13
got to go down to the Tabernacle site.
10:15
We got to see where the Tabernacle stood for 369 years,
10:20
the permanent Tabernacle where king not king, where Eli was
10:25
killed, where Hoffman and Phineas were killed, where
10:28
Samuel was dedicated to the Lord Hannah's prayer.
10:31
We got to stand in that temple ground and that was a our
10:35
Tabernacle ground. And that was a wonderful time,
10:38
something we didn't get to do the first time.
10:40
But then now as we are in Jerusalem, we're staying right
10:43
here in the in the old city, right outside the walls.
10:47
We got to go to a couple of new places.
10:49
Let's start with the couple that the two that we did today and
10:53
then we'll talk about Bethlehem at the very end.
10:59
Well, I'll tell you one of the things that we did, two of the
11:01
things we did, we did several things today that we didn't do
11:04
last time. In fact, today was really full
11:08
of new experiences for us. Not only is our guide different,
11:12
but in fact our guide is named Guy.
11:15
And not only is he a different guide, but he does things
11:20
different. Not that not there was anything
11:21
wrong with Amir last time. Mirror was great guys, just
11:26
different. So we started from a different
11:29
place and, and I enjoyed the fresh perspective.
11:33
One of the things that we did, we went to Mount Zion and we
11:37
went to Caiaphas's house and we were crunched for time because
11:41
we had an appointment later in the day.
11:43
And so we got there and we went down to the basement at the
11:48
bottom, which hewn out rock. This rock room is hewn out and
11:54
we're just down there and you can just imagine this is this is
11:58
Caiaphas's house. This is this is where it was.
12:01
And this is where they held Jesus until they turned him over
12:07
to the Romans. And it just meant a lot.
12:10
We, my wife read Psalm 88 and which was, you know, appropriate
12:16
for how Jesus was feeling at that moment.
12:19
And then we sang Victory in Jesus and, and it was just a
12:22
great time. We came up, we came into the
12:25
outer court where Peter denied Christ three times and then you
12:31
have the Roman road right there that and when I throw it back to
12:36
you, I want you to give me the significance of the Roman Rd.
12:39
You told me about that today. But man, it was just great to be
12:43
there. We didn't get to go to
12:44
Caiaphas's house last time and then we went up to the upper
12:47
room and that was a wonderful experience because that was
12:51
another thing we didn't get to do.
12:52
Now there there were some crowds.
12:54
Are probably the crowd the crowdest, the crowddiest it had
12:57
been the whole time we were here.
12:59
There's about 3 different groups in the upper.
13:03
Room with us so. We're all trying to talk at the
13:04
same time and that was a good. We didn't have a whole lot of
13:07
that. There's a lot of this trip.
13:08
We've just we've been the only tour.
13:12
So we went to the upper room. We saw that it was great, had a
13:15
great experience. And what I before I hand it back
13:19
to you, let me just say that I have felt safe this entire time.
13:24
I've not felt even when we went to Bethlehem, which we'll talk
13:28
about in a minute, I felt completely safe.
13:32
Not only is it safe in Israel, but our Tour Company, our tours,
13:37
Yeah, our tours, they take care of us.
13:40
They watch out for us. You know, if if there was
13:44
something dangerous, they would keep us away from that.
13:47
Of course there's conflict in the area, but you know, if you
13:50
wait until there's no conflict to come to Israel, then you're
13:55
never going to go and listen. And I heard the remarks of
14:00
family members. Oh, you are you going to Israel?
14:03
You better be careful and things like that.
14:07
Just watch out for yourself. But you get here and it's
14:11
totally fine. It's totally safe.
14:14
I haven't felt unsafe this entire time.
14:16
Yeah, absolutely. The same way we'll start with.
14:20
Well, before I forget, let's start with one thing that we got
14:23
to do that Marcus. So this is Marcus's eighth trip
14:27
to Israel. One of the things that he has
14:29
never gotten to do, that we got to all do together was when we
14:32
landed in Jerusalem driving in yesterday.
14:38
We got to go straight to the Mount of Olives.
14:41
Yeah, we went to the Mount of Olives.
14:43
It starts getting dark. The Dome of the Rock is lit up
14:50
would take a picture in front of the pictures don't do justice
14:53
because if you know how iPhones work, they make everything
14:56
brighter so that you can see what's going on.
14:59
But I don't think I'll ever forget the seeing the Temple
15:03
Mount, seeing the locations and just feeling you know, Jesus
15:09
would have seen this. It would have been night time
15:11
for him. He would have.
15:12
He would have. Of course it wouldn't be lit up
15:14
the way it was lit up, but just the view that it was lit up in
15:20
the night time was a view that I'll never forget as we went to
15:24
Caiaphas's house. This is a place we didn't get to
15:25
go before. This is where, like you said,
15:27
Jesus was, was put in prison. He was judged.
15:30
He was thrown over to pilots, to Pontius Pilate to be executed.
15:37
And then Pilate sent him to Herod, and Herod sent and said
15:41
that this isn't my deal, crucify him, send him back.
15:44
And of course, pilots wash his hands.
15:46
As we're at Caiaphas's house, they have uncovered the steps
15:51
that lead from Caiaphas's house down to the Kidron Valley or the
15:56
Jehoshaphat Valley that leads directly over to the Garden of
16:01
Gethsemane. Which tells us that the way they
16:05
would have gotten Jesus from his arrest of the Garden of
16:07
Gethsemane to Caiaphas's house would have been up that road.
16:12
You can see the stairs. There are clearly stairs.
16:15
They have been uncovered, they're laid out, and Jesus our
16:19
Lord and Savior would have walked up those steps to be
16:24
tried, never opened a word at Caiaphan's house.
16:29
And we got to sit and stand on those stairs that we know 100%
16:34
sure that that that's the only way up to Caiaphan's house.
16:36
It's the shortest way from the gardening Gethsemane to that
16:40
house. And so they would have made that
16:42
way and that way up. So from there, of course, you've
16:46
got the Via del Rosa. Did Jesus go to the Via del Rosa
16:50
or would they have taken Jesus from Pilot's house back up those
16:55
stairs to the crucifixion site of Golgotha?
16:59
Maybe, maybe that's the true Via Del Rosa.
17:03
We don't know, but that is the idea of back and forth of Jesus
17:07
could have actually climbed those stairs to go to the
17:12
crucifixion site. So what a great experience that
17:16
was the upper room. I'm about to preach a series to
17:18
the upper room. And so that was a great time for
17:20
me as well. I'm trying to think of something
17:23
else that we did if it was anything else other than
17:26
Bethlehem, because we this this was part of the we had about a
17:30
third of our group that said, I just don't know Bethlehem.
17:33
It's unsafe. If you're not familiar,
17:36
Bethlehem is part of Israel, but Israel and the IDF, the Israel
17:40
Defense Force, does not have jurisdiction to maintain order
17:45
inside of a Palestinian territory, He he said.
17:48
There's AB and CA is all Israel Defense B is like Shiloh or
17:54
Shiloh where you've got IDF and Palestine sort of working
17:58
together. And then you've got C, which
18:01
will be a Bethlehem, which is all Palestine territory, still
18:05
Israel, still the state of Israel.
18:08
But the Palestinians handle the disagreements and the arguments.
18:12
They have the police force in there.
18:13
And so Bethlehem was would be as on the West Bank, of course, and
18:17
it is Palestinian rule. So our guide, because he is a
18:21
Jew, our leader, Yael, leader Porit, because she's a Jew,
18:26
they're not allowed to enter those, those territories.
18:30
And so he said, if you go, we can't go with you, but you can
18:33
go by yourself and we can have a guy on the other side.
18:36
So we got to the Nissan Brothers.
18:38
And so about a third of our group didn't go because again,
18:41
their safety is everything going to be OK?
18:44
And so we get there, we pull up, they, they close the gate behind
18:47
us at the Nissan Brothers. Best meal of the trip was, Oh my
18:52
goodness, best chicken. I think in North Carolina we've
18:56
got a chicken that is massive in the area called Porter Pit
19:01
Chicken and chicken. You pick the bone up and the
19:04
chicken just falls off So good. I think it gave it the front for
19:07
its money. How good that food was there at
19:09
Nissan Brothers. Again, they haven't had tourism
19:11
there in Bethlehem in years, and we'll talk about that in a
19:14
minute as well. So we did all that.
19:17
We leave from there and we go to the shepherd's field where the
19:22
supposed angels came, made the witness to the shepherds and
19:26
they left and went and found the baby Jesus.
19:28
We got to go into a cave. We got to see all that.
19:31
But was it safe, Brett? What what what did did?
19:35
What was your perspective of the safetiness of us going into into
19:40
Bethlehem and then leaving Bethlehem?
19:43
What was your experience or thought on that?
19:47
Well, listen, this, this is Palestine, Palestinian
19:51
controlled land, OK? This is the highest level of
19:55
Palestinian control, like James said.
19:57
So you know there is going to be some of the normal politics that
20:05
you would normally have. Is it any more heightened now
20:09
than it was as it's always been? No, I don't think so at all.
20:13
I think it's the same way. That it's always been, even
20:18
though we're in Palestine and Bethlehem, I never felt unsafe.
20:23
The only thing is our tour guide told us that, listen, don't let
20:29
these, these St. vendors try to give you anything or give you a
20:35
gift 'cause they'll call the cops on you and cause trouble
20:39
and you will be delayed. And if, if they try to give you
20:42
something, just say no thank you.
20:44
They're, they're very aggressive, more in Palestine,
20:48
more so than in than Jerusalem. But other than that, I mean, we,
20:53
we had no issues. We even got the customs fat.
20:57
Marcus said it was the fastest heat ever because you can
21:01
George, drive into Bethlehem, but to drive out you got to go
21:05
through security checkpoint. Sometimes they ask to see your
21:09
passport. Well, our guide said, look,
21:11
don't go that way, go this way. And man, we, he, he waved us
21:15
through. You know, we just drove right on
21:18
out. So, you know, it's, I don't
21:22
think it's any more now than it's always been.
21:26
It's always been that way and I think it was good.
21:29
Now, if I would like to say a little bit about our tour guide,
21:33
Our tour guide, his name was Edmund and he's Palestinian, but
21:37
he's been to the States, His family lives in the States and
21:40
he was talking about. How?
21:42
Hard it's been in tourism, especially there in Bethlehem
21:47
he's was talking about how his families moved to the states.
21:51
The 350,000 Christians in Bethlehem have left.
21:57
There's only 30,000 there now. It's very.
21:59
Hard. To be a Christian and in
22:02
Palestine and Bethlehem, there's a lot of persecution on
22:06
Christians. And he said from 2020 to now,
22:12
he's worked 10 months. And this is the reason why is
22:15
because they had the pandemic and then when the pandemic
22:19
finally got over, they started doing tours for 10 months and
22:23
then the war happened. So in six years, he's worked 10
22:27
months. Because of that, tourism is the
22:29
only thing he does and he's new at it.
22:32
So because he's new, we're only in six years, we're only, we
22:36
were only his second group because he had his his first, I
22:39
guess, in the 10 months he was doing training.
22:41
And so we had his first group of 12 people and then the war
22:45
started and now we were his second group.
22:47
But he was super knowledgeable. He took us to the Shepherd's
22:52
Field and we went in the little Chapel there.
22:55
We sang Silent Night, which was awesome.
22:57
He told us about the three different Christmases, 3, two
23:02
different New Year's they have because every denomination has
23:06
got to get their Christmas and New Year's in and how they're
23:10
out of school from December 20th to January 20th there because
23:15
you know, everybody had, you've got 3 Christmases.
23:17
And his house was right outside the Shepherd's field.
23:22
So he talked about how you know at home every 50 tours they
23:27
would sing Christmas carols in the Chapel and he would hear it.
23:30
And so he said the only thing that he could grow up and be was
23:34
a tourist for the Shepherd Field.
23:37
And man, he took us there, took us into a cave, gave us some
23:42
perspectives on the nativity that I had never thought before.
23:47
And that was the reason why we came here, the reason why we
23:50
made this trip to Israel was to get these different
23:53
perspectives. And now I will preach, I will
23:56
never preach the nativity story the same again because I heard
24:00
what he had to say today. And so was it safe?
24:05
I absolutely it was I you know those they have the third of our
24:09
group that didn't go. I'm just going to tell you, I
24:10
thought they missed out of the best part of the day.
24:13
It was the best meal. It was the most informative.
24:17
The guy did a great job. I think they missed out by now.
24:21
I would, I could, I could have, couldn't have not went because
24:24
I've I've got FOMO, I've got fear missing out.
24:28
And so I was going to go no matter what and I'm glad I did.
24:32
It was, to be honest, it was the best part of the day.
24:35
I agree with you and I think it was a great time, as you said,
24:38
that we got to experience there. He was a Christian, he was a
24:42
believer, and so that was encouraging.
24:44
Again, we, our first time, we never had anyone on our tour
24:48
that was a believer. They were all Orthodox Jews.
24:51
And so we've had two believers. We had a great conversation
24:55
today with a Coptic Egypt Christian, and So what a great
25:00
perspective they have by being in the land where Jesus was at
25:05
and where we are now at. It's been a great time and I
25:09
have so enjoyed it. Has there been bombs dropping
25:12
everywhere? No, but does the media lie to
25:16
us? Yes.
25:18
Well, have there been bombs in the past?
25:19
Yes, but Israel in their sense and I, I've told our people
25:24
this, if it were unsafe for us to be here, they would not allow
25:28
planes to fly in, They would not allow us to be on the grounds.
25:31
The first thing that stops is the planes because the planes
25:34
are not going to be responsible for dropping people off and they
25:36
can't get out of the airport. And so they're going to shut
25:39
those down 1st. And as long as flights are open,
25:41
this is what Paris told me, as long as flights are open, it's
25:44
safe to be in Israel. And I can attest to that being
25:47
here away from our family, it's been safe the entire time
25:51
seeing, you know, Marcus, he had, he said every time he goes
25:54
to Bethlehem, it's, it's always chaos, It's always crazy.
25:58
And he, he just simply told them, we're not going to go
26:01
because of that. And we got to the Nissan
26:02
brothers. He told them that he said, I'll
26:04
fix that. And he called the police.
26:07
He told them and there was a police officer out there waiting
26:10
for us, escorted us and then went ahead of us and got us to
26:13
the checkpoint. We had been told that it was
26:16
going to be an hour to an hour and a half to get to that
26:18
checkpoint. It took about a minute and 1/2
26:21
because they want us to come back, they want the tourism
26:24
here, they want us to see the Holy Land and they they want us
26:28
to experience, like we said before, the Bible coming to true
26:32
life. It's a full vision of full color
26:36
and man. It has been a great experience.
26:39
We're going to be able to tomorrow go to the Dead Sea and
26:45
Qumran and Masada and then finish our day with all the city
26:50
with the crucifixion place, the Church of Flagulation, the
26:54
places that we, some of the places we didn't get to go on
26:57
our last day. And then before we note Brett,
26:59
we're going to be getting on a plane and flying home 12 hours
27:03
and time change and everything else.
27:06
But man, what a great time it has been.
27:08
The friends we've made, man, the guys on this trip have been
27:12
awesome. Even Sean from your church.
27:14
Man, what a great time we've had with him and Johnny and Tim and
27:18
Paul and I'm missing some Chris Lawrence.
27:21
Oh, Lawrence is like my best friend now.
27:24
It's a great time. And what, what there's two guys
27:27
that I, I want to highlight and they, they will probably never
27:31
listen to this episode, so it's fine. 1 is a man that you
27:35
brought Wayne and tell a little bit about Wayne and then tell
27:39
about his story and about what he did and how he was able to
27:43
come to Israel. And then I want to share about
27:46
the other guy. Well, I'll tell you, Wayne McKee
27:51
is a preacher. He's 75 years old.
27:55
He passes the church, Faith Baptist Church in Lena, Ms. And
28:01
you know, I first met Wayne with a phone call because what
28:05
happened is we put our trip in our association newsletter.
28:11
He read the association newsletter, heard about the trip
28:14
and he he contacted me and wanted to know if he could, you
28:19
know, he could want to come to Israel one last time.
28:22
And at first he was going to come with his wife, but then she
28:24
had some health problems and decided to stay back.
28:27
But Wayne's just the old fashioned kind of guy.
28:30
And what I mean by that, just nothing electronic, no
28:34
smartphone, no e-mail, no Internet.
28:38
So I kind of had to help him and do all of his, his online stuff
28:43
for him. I had to sign up for him and pay
28:46
for him online and things like that and apply for his Israeli
28:51
visa and things like that for him, which I didn't mind doing
28:54
at all. That's part of what I do is in,
28:57
in leading this group to Israel. That's part of my job.
29:01
But listen, he is just, that was the first time I've ever, I ever
29:05
met him. I didn't know him before he
29:06
called me and I have just grown to love him here today.
29:12
I preached at the Garden of Gethsemane.
29:14
And then we we want to turn it over to Wayne to pray, to give
29:19
him an opportunity to speak because we've been given all the
29:22
pastors on this trip opportunities to speak.
29:25
And so he was able to speak for a minute and then pray at the
29:29
Garden of Gethsemane. And it was just a precious,
29:32
wonderful time. He's a great guy and I'm glad he
29:36
did say this will be his last time in the Holy Land.
29:39
He also said that he has learned.
29:41
He's went one other time in the 80s.
29:44
And he said he learned more on his first day here then he did
29:48
the whole rest of the trip. He's seeing stuff he didn't even
29:50
know about the first time he went, and he's having a great
29:55
time. Yeah, I think part of that, I
29:57
forgot that he said he'd been here before.
30:00
He's been in ministry for 50 years.
30:01
He drove a truck for 50 years. So he's a truck driver full time
30:05
and then pastored the church on the weekend.
30:07
He drove over the road Monday through Friday, came home on the
30:11
weekend, pastored his church in Georgia, and then recently moved
30:15
to Mississippi to be with his grandkids.
30:18
But that was one of the things I learned today was every tour
30:22
guide in Israel has to at least have their master's degree.
30:26
And then they have to go through like 6 to 8 months of training
30:30
to even be a Israeli tour guide. Which if you can think about it,
30:34
40 years ago in the 80s, I'm sure they didn't have any of
30:37
that. It's just some, some, yeah, you
30:39
got to pass a test. You got to be able to do these
30:41
things. And so they're very
30:43
knowledgeable today. They, they want to bring what
30:47
the Jewish culture is and how it affected and and set up for the
30:52
Christians because we're again, there was a split between the
30:57
Jews and the Christians that once they were together, as our
31:00
God said. And then when Peter had his
31:03
vision of Cornelius at Joppa, we didn't we that was a new place
31:08
we went to. I forgot where Jonah was at
31:09
right. He had the vision of Joppa.
31:11
We got to do that the first day we see.
31:13
We've been here so much. I've forgotten a brand new
31:15
place. He had this vision and he our
31:17
guy told us he said it up until this point.
31:21
He said the Christians and the Jews were together.
31:24
They were OK with it. But when Peter came in and said
31:27
God is declaring everything to be clean and whatever he
31:31
declares to be clean, and we're abolishing the rules of kosher
31:35
and those laws, he said the Jewish fraction said we can't do
31:39
that. And the Christian fraction went
31:42
a different way. So they were together for years
31:45
there they they were worshipping together.
31:47
They loved each other. But that was the moment where
31:50
Peter said, hey, we're going to have freedom in Christ.
31:53
And Paul later wrote from Galatians 51, we're going to
31:55
have from Freedom Crisis. That's free.
31:58
Been great to be able to get a hold of Wayne and be able to
32:01
talk with him. The other guy that I'm going to
32:02
highlight is Bruce or not Bruce. Butch, Butch or Kirby is what
32:07
his name tag says, but it goes by Butch.
32:10
Butch is in his 80s, I believe, and he's got he's here with his
32:15
sister and his niece and nephew or his two nieces and his
32:21
granddaughter is is great, 22 nieces and granddaughter.
32:26
That's what it is. Yeah.
32:27
He's here with them and sister Beth.
32:32
And there's Mary Beth's niece and then Sarah Beth is his
32:36
granddaughter and then the other one that I can't remember her
32:39
name, Angela. I don't know why Angela and
32:44
Sarah, Beth and Beth, but man, he is hoofing it with the rest
32:51
of us. I mean, he's outpacing me at
32:52
times. He's, he's taking every step.
32:56
He's loving being here with his granddaughter and his sister and
32:59
his nieces. And man, it's just been an
33:02
encouragement to me because he said that he had, he was here 9
33:06
or 10 years ago. There was a guy that was that we
33:10
were on the Temple Mount today, Brett, there was a little old
33:13
lady. She didn't speak English.
33:15
And he walks over and he's trying to tell her about Jesus.
33:18
He's trying to tell her about our Lord and Savior who died on
33:21
the cross for her sins. She doesn't speak English and
33:23
she doesn't even standing. And she's over there trying to
33:26
like, that's his heart. He's like, I'm here to tell the
33:29
Jewish people about Jesus. And what an encouragement that
33:33
is for us that he felt safe enough to walk over on the
33:37
Temple Mount, the holiest of holy place for the Muslims, and
33:41
try to witness to him and not fear of persecution, not fear of
33:45
arrest. And so it's been a great time
33:47
and we have enjoyed it. I'm thankful for the ones on
33:51
this trip that came with us. I'm sorry for the ones that
33:53
couldn't come. Maybe next time in a couple of
33:55
years, if we come back, we you'll join us.
33:59
And so, Brett, any final words before we cancel, before we
34:02
close down? I'm just glad to be here, I'm
34:05
glad to go home and I'm ready to.
34:07
Go to bed. That's right, we're, we're
34:09
recording this at 9:43 at night after a long day here in
34:14
Jerusalem. We got a long two days left.
34:16
And so thank you for tuning in. And like I said on the last
34:20
episode, we're going to be dropping the teaching and the
34:23
preaching times and maybe even some of the clips of our guide
34:28
and some of the things that he said.
34:29
I've tried to record most of them.
34:31
And so hopefully we'll get some of those audio things out in the
34:35
month of February and then look forward to what we've got coming
34:37
out in March with spiritual manipulation and boundaries.
34:42
We're going to be talking about boundaries as well, what that
34:44
looks like, healthy boundaries in a couple of months.
34:47
And I'm looking forward to this season of the podcast.
34:50
And so, until next time, to God be the glory.
34:52
Great things he has done. Found that good grace, Found
34:59
that healing. And the tears fell down my face
35:02
when I found my beginning that has no ending.
35:05
I found that second chance. Found my best friend.
35:07
Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness.
35:08
I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom.
35:25
Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast.
35:28
If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking,
35:32
subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast
35:36
platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for
35:39
the For Freedom Podcast.