Israel Day 2 - Caesarea, Mt. Carmel, Tel Megiddo

In the morning, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise. Here is the same view from our hotel balcony.

Kelly was able to spot a rainbow while we were standing on the balcony. Great start to the day!

On our trip from the hotel, we drove past the Mossad Headquarters (Israeli Intelligence) and the area where the Patriot missiles were stationed during Operation Desert Storm to defend Tel Aviv from incoming Scudd missile attacks from Iraq.

Our first stop for the day was Caesarea Maritima. Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, lived in this city. He was the first Gentile with whom Peter shared the gospel (Acts 10). Caesarea Maritima was a city that Herod the Great built as a vacation home around 25 BC. This Herod the Great was the same Roman puppet-King of Judea that had all of the children born at the time of Jesus slain in an attempt to kill Christ early on in his life.

3 of Paul the apostle's missionary journeys went through this city and it was here that he was imprisoned before being sent before Caesar (Acts 23-25). We were able to spend some time in the coliseum worshiping the Lord and doing a Bible study before touring the ruins. Here is a picture of Matt, our associate pastor as we look out into the coliseum...

We were then able to walk through the ruins of the city and see the remnants of Herod's Great Hall and the large freshwater pool that he built overlooking the ocean. Here is a picture of Kelly standing in front of a large portion of the site.

The Hippodrome was the place where they would meet to have horse races. Seven horses would race side by side on this track. This was later turned into a gladiatorial stadium. Herod was the man who instituted the medal system we still use today in the Olympics (Gold - 1st, Silver - 2nd, and Bronze - 3rd).

Our next stop was Mt. Carmel. This was the site where the prophet Elijah challenged the 450 prophets of the Pagan god Baal to a duel to find out which God was real. The story can be found in 1 Kings 18. Here we are on Mt. Carmel.

Long story short, God proved true and Baal proved to be a false god, and Elijah slew the prophets of Baal in the Valley below. Not coincidentally, this valley that you could see from Mt. Carmel is the Jezreel Valley, also known as the Valley of Armageddon (Rev. 16).

How could this be the Valley where the final battle between good and evil takes place, right? It looks so peaceful, right? Just as we were sitting there meditating on what God has done and will do in this place, we saw four Israeli F-15s fly right overhead. Very surreal to say the least!

At this point in the day, we left Mt. Carmel and descended down it's slopes to Tel-Meggido. A Tel is simply a hill where one conquering group builds its town upon the remains or ruins of the town that was conquered. Tel Megiddo has 3 main levels, the first of which dates back to 1500 BC under Canaanite ownership.

There is a huge underground water system that we were able to tour through which King Ahab of Israel commissioned as well as a giant altar on which animal sacrifices for the pagan god Baal took place. The next picture is of the remains of Solomon's stables which were also in this area. King Solomon was the most powerful, wealthy, and wise king of Israel's history. During the height of his kingdom, he had a great number of chariots and horses, some of which were kept here. You can see the remains of the columns as well as the feeding troughs in between each column.

After spending a few hours here (not nearly enough time), we departed for our stay that evening at a hotel on the Sea of Galilee. From Mt. Carmel, you could see Mt. Tabor, Nazareth, and many other biblical sites of importance. As we drove to our hotel that night, we passed through the city named Nazareth with a beautiful view of the oncoming weather.

By this point we checked into our hotel, had another fabulous meal, and hit the sack early to get ready for the big day ahead of us. An awesome first full day of touring in Israel!