A Journey to Israel – Day 6 – Dead Sea

By Grace Valley Christian Center on Feb 3rd, 2015 05:30 PM

This post was contributed by Mr. Marc Roby:

Near the Dead Sea, Masada juts from the desert floor, bleak, proud and defiant. Yet another site for King Herod to display his frenetic building genius, it is better known today as Israel’s “Alamo,” the place where Jewish Zealots staged a last stand against the Roman armies in 73 A.D. When it became clear to the Zealots that they could not prevail, they chose to kill themselves rather than surrender. In this series of events modern-day Israel takes pride, yet I couldn’t help but have mixed emotions as we ascended the mountain (in cable cars – no siege ramp necessary!). While I had to admire the Jews’ resolve in refusing to wear the yoke of Rome, I was reminded of their stubborn unwillingness to take up the yoke of Christ. And while willingness to die for your cause may be honorable, is taking your own life ever God’s perfect will?

I now know why David sought refuge from Saul in En Gedi. Although seemingly in the absolute middle of nowhere, surrounded by salt, desert, heat and humidity, it is truly a refreshing oasis of green and water year round. How delightful to find clear, fresh water after a long run past the saltiest sea on earth.

Qumran, our last stop along the Dead Sea, was in some respects the trip’s highlight for me. From a distance we could see some of the caves where scrolls written in Hebrew around the time of Jesus and containing most of the Old Testament books were discovered in 1947. When scholars compared our modern-day Hebrew Bible to the Isaiah scroll of Qumran, the correspondence was astounding. The texts from Qumran proved to be word-for-word identical to our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The Westminster Confession of Faith states, “The Old Testament in Hebrew, being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, is therefore authentic…” The Dead Sea scrolls reminded me of God’s marvelous testimony, “my words shall never pass away.”

“I rejoiced when they said unto me, ‘Let us go… our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.’” In the late afternoon we reached our final destination for the day—Jerusalem! We stopped for what is perhaps the most iconic view in all the golden city—the golden Dome of the Rock as seen from the Mount of Olives. It was truly awe-inspiring, and yet what poignancy!

Actually, you can’t really swim in the Dead Sea – you float. Due to the salt content of the water we all floated and couldn’t sink, even when we tried. You don’t need to tread water either – we felt like a cork in the water, just bobbing up and down. It was an amazing experience and a lot of fun. To prevent dehydration we only stayed in the water for about 20 minutes, but this was one of the most fun experiences of the whole trip.

At dinner that night we had an amazing array of food, and no one went away hungry. We dined in luxury and had a wonderful evening of fellowship to prepare for another busy, hot day!

Masada: Masada - Day 6