HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE, FLORIDA

FLORIDA

September 1^st I headed for Florida and was received by Gerry and Melinda. I spoke at their church; First Baptist church Dover and we were able to get more children sponsors. Praise God.

HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE

On Thursday 6^th September Gerry and Melinda took me to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando Florida. This is the place that has built up places and replicas like those that are in the Holy land in Jerusalem during the days of Jesus. Currently it is run by the TBN.

The truth is that this was the most fascinating place I have ever seen in my life that brings a live the picture of the Bible days. I mean it made the Bible come alive. Among the many well-built and well maintained are; the garden of Eden, Bethlehem, garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem, Calvary hill and Nazareth.

THE BIBLE

The first place we visited was the place that explains the origin of the the Bible and it’s authenticity as the work of God.

The Bible is the most read book, the narrator said as he started his 55 minute tour through different apartments that explained how the Bible came into existence up to today.

He told us how writing started in Mesopotamia and how they started writings on pieces of stone called Cuneiform.  Scripture would be written on these rocks.

Later on they started making scrolls from reeds and they would write scripture manuscripts and later on started using paper. He told us that as the truth of the word of God started to spread the enemy started to fight and many scrolls were burnt. Somehow a few were preserved and could be passed on.

The original scripts were written in Hebrew and later on the New Testament in Greek. John Wycliff the first man to translate the Bible put it in the language the ordinary man can read so that the work can spread in the Roman Empire.  He translated the N.T into Italian since that was the language spoken in Rome. Martin Luther influenced the church to read the Bible and the Bible was translated in German.

William Tyndale under a price translated the Bible into the ordinary man’s language ever. And so the Bible could be now read in English. However he was killed for doing this. Before he died he prayed that God would touch the heart of the king of England and indeed a few years after his death King William authorized the Bible to read by all. The King James Version became the first authorized translation version to be authorized by the King.

Today the Bible is the most read book in the entire Universe.

THE TOUR THROUGH THE HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE

We started the tour with the Garden of Eden with the Ark of the Covenant and all the animals. Then the Tabernacle of Moses. There was this Old Testament priest that took us step by step through the temple worship of those days. Right from the alter of sacrifice where Jews would start their worship by sacrificing a lamb. Then the basin where they would wash their hands lest they die. God is a holy God so they had to be pure before they enter the Holy place. Then you would enter the Tabernacle and the first thing would be the table of unleavened bread. Then the table of seven candle sticks and finally the alter of incense. From here you enter through the curtain to the Holy of Hollies and only the High priest was allowed to enter this place and once every year with blood to atone for the sins of the nation. In here you would find the Ark of the Covenant that contained tablets of the Ten Commandments, the pot of Manna and Aaron’s rod that budded. The whole this was awesome!

After this Bethlehem, where Jesus was born from. It has all these beautiful replicas of baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph plus the shepherd, Angels and the wise men with their camels. It all looks beautiful.

Then, Nazareth where Jesus grew from. It has a very short entrance depicted in the bible times as the eye of the needle; Camels had to stay outside thus Jesus giving the parable being so hard for the camel to go through the eye of the needle.

Then Galilee where Jesus preached occasionally, there is a replica of an old boast which is believed to be the very boat that Jesus used when he was preaching on the same lake over 2000 years ago.

Then Jerusalem as it was in the days of Jesus, with all the beautiful places like the Solomon Temple which though it was destroyed by the Babylonians, it was rebuilt by Herod and it was very beautiful covered with Gold. This was later destroyed by the Romans under the command of Emperor Titus and in order to remove all the Gold they removed it brick by brick and stone by stone just like Jesus had prophesied. This is amazing!
Then we saw where Jesus made the first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana of Galilee.

It was great to visit other Bible sites like the upper room where Jesus had the Passover feast with his disciples. We literally had Holy Communion here. And a priest in the picture of Jesus “appeared suddenly” and led us through Holy Communion service and “disappeared” after the service. Then we entered the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed and was betrayed by Judas. 
Then Gologotha where he was crucified and buried and finally raised from the dead. We saw the place where he ascended to heaven and angels said that just as you have seen go to heaven, in the same way he will come back. “Thank you Lord Jesus for the sacrifice you made for my salvation”

The entire tour was summed up with a presentation at Holy Land Experience church, where these people acted the life of Jesus. It was great.

At the end of the days, I said this was worth it. Thank God my friends Gerry and Melinda came up with this plan; it was both educating and inspirational. Glory to God!