The Well, The Gutter, Exile, and Armageddon

God inhabits the praise of His people (Psalm 22:3).  He dwells inside our praise, whether by thought (silent words), spoken words, or song.  Praise by song is especially powerful. When God is praised with one’s might and from a believer who has clean hands and a pure heart, God lifts that believer up into heavenly places, far above the dark, foreboding storm clouds.  Above the clouds, the Son is always shining.  Imagine that even evil spirits must flee when songs of praise are lifted up. 

Ephesians 5:19:

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

How marvelous and miraculous a feat: The born-again can sing spiritual songs; they can offer up praise with their lips that God inhabits.  When the God of Light inhabits praise, the darkness of fear and despair must flee away. 

Have you been born again—born a literal second time, this time of the Spirit of God?  Will today be the day your bitter words are replaced with sweet?  Will today be the day you see the Light?  Click onto “Further with Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT. 

GOD SAID, Matthew 24:35:

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

GODSAID, Psalm 119:140:

Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.

GODSAID, Psalm 12:6-7:

6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

GODSAID, Proverbs 30:5-6:

5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

MAN SAID: These Christian zealots are a bane on our society.  Their Bible is a reproach to all “right-thinking” people.  Let’s be free of it! 

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Thank you for coming.  We are honored by your presence.  May God’s face shine upon you and yours. 

I need to be right: To walk in right—or to walk in righteousness, the outward and inward results of right.  I need to know: Is God’s Word really the supernaturally-dictated, eternal Words of an Almighty Creator? Is God’s Word true and righteous altogether?  Is it right?  Everything—absolutely everything—depends on it. 

GodSaidManSaid uses four proof platforms to establish answers to all of the above questions.  The first proof platform is Archaeology, which is listed second from the top on the navigation bar to the left.  Here, GodSaidManSaid employs archaeology, paleontology, geology, chronology, ancient history, societal records, and microbiology to confirm the Word of God.  Bizarre pronouncements in God’s Word are all proven beyond any reasonable doubt.  A sampling of the subjects covered include:

✔ Creation;

✔ A 6,000-year-old earth;

✔ Adam’s rib;

✔ Adam and Eve;

✔ The fall of man;

✔ The tree of life;

✔ Noah’s flood;

✔ The Tower of Babel;

✔ Sodom and Gomorrah;

✔ Jacob’s sheep;

✔ Joseph and his coat of many colors;

✔ Moses and the Red Sea;

✔ Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho;

✔ And so many more—all true and righteous altogether. 

Skeptics have long maligned the accuracy and credibility of the Holy Bible.  Squirm and twist as they may, the Book stands true and undefeated.  Millions upon millions of books must bow before the Word of God.  When one comes to the understanding that Revelation 19:13 says of Christ, “And His name is called the Word of God,” the reason all the world’s books must bow becomes obvious—even prophetic.  Philippians 2:7-11 speaks of Christ:

7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

While reviewing the archaeology plugs in Halley’s Bible Handbook, many noteworthy, Bible-confirming archaeological discoveries were cited, and a few follow. 

Nearly 4,000 years ago, Jacob, whose name was changed by God to Israel, dug a well, known as “Jacob’s Well,” which exists to this very day.  Jesus had an encounter with the Samarian woman at this well, recorded in John 4:6:

Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

Halley’s reports:

The well of Jacob, 100 feet deep and nine feet in diameter, is one of the places in the life of Jesus that can be identified with certainty and precision.  It lies at the foot of Mount Gerizim, which was (and still is) the center of Samaritan worship.  Recent archaeological excavations at the summit of Mount Gerizim have begun to uncover the remains of an ancient Samaritan temple. [End of quote]

Until recently, the “higher” critics scoffed at the idea of a Goliath slain by a shepherd boy who would become the king of a powerful Israeli kingdom.  If this boy existed at all, they claim, he would have merely been a chieftain of a small, inconsequential clan.  Recent discoveries have proven this criticism false.  Halley’s notes an archaeological find that confirms II Samuel 5:8:

And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.

Halley’s reads:

This watercourse (Hebrew sinnor; II Samuel 5:8), by which Joab and David’s men gained entrance to Jerusalem, was discovered in 1998 by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron.  It consists of a large pool, which collected water from the Gihon Spring and was guarded by two massive towers.  An underground secret passageway led from inside the city to a point where water could be drawn from the pool—so that the residents of the city did not have to go outside the city wall to draw water. 

In the 1980s, a rounded “stepped-stone” structure, five stories high, was discovered.  It apparently supported an old Jebusite citadel (maybe called “Zion”) which was captured by David.  David’s city made use of the massive city wall that the Canaanites had built about 1800 B.C. [End of quote]

The kings of Assyria overcame the Jewish city of Samaria—the capitol of the northern kingdom of Israel and consisting of ten tribes—and the Gentile king then exiled the Jewish people and repopulated the land with strangers.  II Kings 17:1-6; 24:

1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.

2 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him.

3 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents.

4 And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.

5 Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.

6 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

24 And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. 

Halley’s writes:

The beginning of the deportation of the northern kingdom by Tiglath-pileser III (v. 29) is recorded in Tiglath-pileser’s inscription: “The people of the land of Omri [i.e., Israel] I deported to Assyria, with their property.

II Kings says, “The king of Assyria… marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years… [He] captured Samaria and deported the Israelites… The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon… and settled them in the towns of Samaria”  (17:5-6, 24).

An inscription of Sargon says, “In my first year, I captured Samaria.  I took captive 27,290 people.  People of other lands, who never paid tribute, I settled in Samaria.  [End of quote]

Revelation 16:12-16:

12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

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

This place called Armageddon will be the military staging-place for the very last battle leading up to the 1,000-year reign of Jesus Christ and His saints on the earth.  Halley’s Bible Handbook weighs in:

In the extensive excavations at Megiddo, several palaces, storerooms (or stables), a city gate, city wall, and a large underground water system from the days of Ahab have been found. 

Megiddo gave its name to the area where the armies opposing God’s people will assemble and the great and final battle of the ages will be waged: Armageddon (Har Megiddo, Mountain of Megiddo; Revelation 16:16).  Megiddo was situated on the south side of the Jezreel Valley, 10 miles southwest of Nazareth, at the entrance to a pass across the Carmel mountain range, on the main highway between Asia and Africa.  It thus held a key position between the Euphrates and the Nile and was the meeting place of armies from the East and from the West.  Thutmose III, who made Egypt a world empire, said, “Megiddo is worth a thousand cities.” 

It was at Megiddo in World War I that General Henry Allenby (1918) broke the power of the Turkish army.  It is said that more blood has been shed around this hill than any other spot on earth.  [End of quote]

When the great conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte first viewed Megiddo, it is reported that he said, “All the armies of the world could maneuver their forces on this vast plain… There is no place in the whole world more suited for war than this… [It is] the most natural battle ground of the whole earth” (Cline, 2002:142).  The above quote was found on the Associates for Biblical Research website. 

God’s Word is an inerrant record of that which is passed and that which is to come—miracles and all.  God’s Word is a place to build a life that will last forever.

GOD SAID, Matthew 24:35:

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

GODSAID, Psalm 119:140:

Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.

GODSAID, Psalm 12:6-7:

6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

GODSAID, Proverbs 30:5-6:

5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

MAN SAID: These Christian zealots are a bane on our society.  Their Bible is a reproach to all “right-thinking” people.  Let’s be free of it! 

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Halley, H. H., Halley’s Bible Handbook, Zondervan, 2000

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