TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Holy Land Day 3: Wadi Musa, Moses’ Spring, and the Gateway to Petra

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Today on TruNews, the team makes their way through the Jordanian desert to Wadi Musa, the Valley of Moses. Rick shares the experiences of the day, including a visit to the supposed place where Moses stuck the rock and water flowed in Numbers chapter 20. Rick also provides an update on his important meeting the night before, and what the team has to look forward to tomorrow as they enter Petra. Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart. Airdate 4/28/22Holy Land Day 1: Ancient Roman City and Elijah's Mountain - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49569185Holy Land Day 2: The City of Aqaba and the World’s Oldest Church - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49573636

The following program is made possible by the faithful prayers and financial support of listeners just like you. To find out how you can help, visit www.truenews.com. Well, welcome to True News. I'm Rick Wiles. I'm Doc Burkhardt. And this trip to Jordan is getting really exciting now. We are standing atop a mountain overlooking the city of Wadi Musa. Wadi means valley. This is the Valley of Moses. Yes.

And, Doc, I mean, it's hard to describe the feeling here. But this is where Moses passed through as he led the Hebrew people from Egypt to Canaan, to the promised land. Yes, sir. And overlooking us in the distance, back on those mountains there, is the ancient city of petra that's right so we're headed there tonight and uh petra um several nights a week is lit up yes and so we we've been given an invitation by the Jordanian government. We just met with the commissioner of tourism and the man who's for the government over all of this site.

This is a national park for Jordan. Yes. So he has just literally given us an open door and much favor today. I'm just really. So much. And much favor today. I'm just really very, very honored and pleased by what just happened about an hour ago as we were in his office. But the mountain range that you can see behind us, on the other side of the mountain range, is Petra. And we're going there tonight, this evening, but we're also going tomorrow. And so we'll actually be doing the Godcast from there tomorrow,

and we'll show you highlights of our visit tonight where they light up Petra. And just some video that I've seen of them lighting up Petra in the past. It looks magnificent, Rick. I can't wait to see it in person. That will be awesome, but I'll tell you that the most awesome video you're going to see tomorrow will be Doc and me on donkeys. Donkeys are camels. I guess it gives a choice. So it's impossible to get to some of the sites. The commissioner of tourism, the favor that he's giving us, he is permitting us to go places that the general public, the tourists, cannot go.

And so they are providing us with donkeys or camels tomorrow morning. And Doc and I truly will be a beast of burden tomorrow. So pray for the donkeys tomorrow. But we're going to ride one of these creatures up into the mountains to see places of Petra that the general public, tourists, never get to see. So I'm very excited about that. And you'll get to see it, too. Yes, you'll see it. Some camels have been here. Be careful where I step.

There is camel evidence here. Let's say that. They left some things behind where we're standing right now. This town of Wadi Musa, named for Moses, the Valley of Moses, we just came from what the Jordanians consider a shrine. It is a spring. It's a perennial natural spring flowing out of the rocks. And legend, the legend is that is the site that Moses struck the rock with his staff. And

you can read about it in Numbers 20. Right now I've got it right here. I can read the passage. So Numbers 20, and there was've got it right here. I can read the passage. So Numbers 20, and there was no water for the congregation and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses and spake saying, would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord. And why have you brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have you made us to come up out of Egypt to bring us into this evil place? It is no place of seed, pretty barren out here, or figs or vines or pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink. And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation,

and they fell upon their faces, and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth this water. And thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock, and so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he had commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and said unto them,

Here now, you rebels, must we fetch you water up out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smoked the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank and their beasts. But there's more to the story. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, because you believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this congregation

into the land which I've given them. And this is the water of Meribah because the children of Israel strove with the Lord and he was sanctified in them. What a powerful spiritual lesson. Moses, this great man of God who did incredible, unbelievable things in the name of the Lord, and yet at this place where we're at right now, in this wilderness uh he became frustrated yes he became frustrated with the rebellious hebrew people his people were let's just say they got on his nerves right he had been he'd been dealing with them for 40 years and they got on his nerves, and out of frustration, he struck the rock instead of speaking to it.

God said, speak to the rock, and Moses struck the rock. Yes. The water came out, but Moses didn't go in. Yes. There's a sermon. Yes. There's a sermon. The water came out.

Moses didn't go in. What was the consequence of Moses disobeying God? He was not allowed into the promised land. And Aaron wasn't either. So they were together. So God spoke to both Moses and Aaron. And Aaron died nearby here, not too long after that. He actually, his grave is along here. In fact, the government has granted us permission to visit Aaron's tomb. This is a really huge blessing to us because Aaron's tomb is closed to the public. Right. You can't visit it.

But the government is going to allow us to go there and and video record from Aaron's tomb and within the next day or two when we leave Petra we will be going to Mount Nebo yes which is the mountain where Moses first saw the promised land right now some people, some people believe, some people believe, Doc, that Mount Nebo is where Moses struck the rock. So there's, there are competing legends. This town, which is named for Moses, you know, this town's named for Moses. And the reason why it's named for Moses because of the spring of Moses. The spring. So, so I'm going to go with this one. This is Moses' valley. And, hey, I drank the water there.

It was delicious. Very, very pure. And I touched the rock. And so I can say, hey, I was there. I was at the rock. And you can actually see a split in the rock. So, hey, I can actually go back home now and say, I touched the rock that Moses struck. But it comes back to me as a lesson.

Even under the anointing of the Lord, Rick, we must be careful to be always obedient to God. Yes. And not take this anointing for granted. That is a lesson to everybody, whether you're a minister or not. We have to keep our temper under control, our anger, our frustrations, that we don't act out of frustration. We can miss God's blessing for us. We can miss what God has planned for us because we acted out of anger or frustration, and it displeased the Lord. And then he closes the door for our lives that he planned to bless us.

And that's the moral of the story with Moses. He didn't go into the promised land. He died at Mount Nebo because of what he did in Striking the Rock. Yes. So I want to tell you, our drive, we left Aqaba. By the way, we had an awesome dinner last night. It was in a private home. Her name is Laura Meacham. She's from Fort Worth, Texas. She's an 85-year-old widow missionary living in Aqaba and a praying woman. And so

she hosted us at her home and had a delegation of Jordanian officials and business leaders there, including a sheikh from the Bedouin tribe. I joked with some people last night. I said it was like having dinner with Chief Sitting Bull. Yes. I mean, to give you an idea, the Bedouins, think of them as we in America would say a tribe of Native Americans, Indians. That's how I see the Bedouins. And so this man who was there last night to shake, he's like the grand chief. Yes. I mean, he is the top dog in Bedouin world here. And he came to the dinner. He was a delightful man.

Yes. And you've got a selfie with him. He asked for a selfie with you. Yes. The Bedouin chief wanted a selfie with me. I was at first I wasn't sure what he was asking for. But he whipped out his cell phone. He did.

He had a cell phone, and they got the picture taken. So we had a wonderful dinner last night, and it was catered by a famous restaurant here in Aqaba. We're not in Aqaba now, but in the city of Aqaba. And the Lord just gave us favor i don't know what else to say he just gave us a lot of favor with uh the leaders of aqaba and um i'm just really looking forward to coming back then so we drove today from aqaba how long were we on the highway about two hours two hours uh desert everywhere and we'll show you some video to give you an idea of what we were seeing for two hours saw saw donkeys in the desert camels in the desert i'm if susan was on this trip, we probably wouldn't even be here by now. I would still be searching for water for the donkeys because she would have made me stop the vehicle and search for water.

She would have said, look at those poor little donkeys out there in the desert. They don't have any water. Rick, go find them water. So that's probably what I'd be doing. It'd probably be a five to six hour trip to get here but it was it was a a very interesting drive here this is picturesque i mean there's no other way to describe it but it's stark yes it's stark it's a desert it's stark but you know what even though there there's the starkness to it there's a beauty to it as well i mean i look around and i think of all the passages in the Psalms and the prophets where they talk about the mountains.

These are the mountains that they were looking at. They weren't looking at Mount Everest, snow-capped mountains and everything. They were looking at these mountains here, Rick, and they were going, there's where God resides. God resides in the mountains. Or these are the mountains. You were mentioning the mountains will testify against mankind someday. These are the mountains. They've seen the secrets of man.

Doc, what I was thinking about as we drove here and now that we're here at the Valley of Moses, now it really, the story of the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. This is where they were wandering. Yes, and it is wilderness. I mean, there's nothing. I mean, you would drive for dozens of miles and not see anything except sand and mountains. So, the Hebrew people walked through this desert, this wilderness, and God fed them every day with manna. Yes. Now this story really means something, doesn't it? Because there's

nothing out here. There's no supermarkets. There's no place to stop. I mean, there is here in Wadi Musa now, but you've got to imagine that there was absolutely nothing there's just scrub brush here there's nothing to eat nothing to grow at all and so it's it's a lesson to all of us today because you know the one of the biggest news stories in the world right now is global food shortage right and and my friends were good it's going to become very severe in the coming six months. What the sources that I'm getting information from are saying it's going to hit very hard this fall around October, November, global food shortage. And a lot of people I know are very concerned because this food shortage isn't going to last a week or two. It's going to go for years.

Right. So you've got to think about the Hebrew people here. They left Egypt where they were eating leeks and onions. They had a salad bar. Yes. And God brought them out into a wilderness. But he fed them. Yes.

And they never went hungry. They complained. They were gripers. They were complaining. There's the lesson to learn. In fact, in the book of Hebrews, in the New Testament Bible, Paul said the Hebrews walking through this land is a lesson to us. It's a lesson. Paul said, pay attention. They did not enter into God's rest. Therefore, they did not enter into the rest of God. They did not enter

into the promised land because they never entered into the rest of God. And then he said, there is a rest for God's people. And let this be a lesson to us is what Paul was saying to the rest of God. And then he said, there is a rest for God's people. And let this be a lesson to us is what Paul was saying to the church. So this is meaning a lot to me today, Doc, as we stand on this mountaintop, looking at the city of Moses, the valley of Moses. This is really a lifetime dream to be here and God willing, we're going to bring you here in October. The Jordanian government is very excited about us bringing tours, tour groups of Americans here.

Honestly, the Lord is opening up just amazing doors of favor here. Oh, we gotta, we gotta tell this before we wrap it up here. So we went into, look, we do everything by the book. We're guests me in this ministry, but they're representing the kingdom of God. Right. And Christians shouldn't be lawbreakers and rebels.

But anyhow, we went to the government tourism office for Petra. Because you needed a permit. We needed to get the permit to do what we're doing right now. Right. We needed a government permit to film here in Petra and to ride vehicles and then donkeys into Petra. So when we went in the government office, I introduced myself. I'm Rick Wiles. And Doc said, my name is Doc Burkhart. And the immediate response was what? Was, hello, Mr. Burkhart. Welcome back.

And what did that mean, Doc? Mr. Burkhart, welcome back. Have you ever been here? No, I've never been here. But they recognized the name Burkhart. And the reason why is an explorer by the name of Johann Ludwig Burkhart actually discovered Petra on August 22nd in 1812. The city of Petra, hidden in the mountains, had been hidden for centuries after the Crusades and had only been recently discovered in 1812 by John Lewis Burkhart, also known as Johann Ludwig Burkhart. He came here as an explorer representing Cambridge University in

England. And who sponsored him? He was sponsored by no less than Sir Joseph Banks of London. Yes, that Joseph Banks. The clothier. Yes, the clothier who financed his journeys from Egypt all the way up through Canaan. But he was the one that came through this area in August of 1812. And he had heard that there were some unusual sights to see in the mountains behind us here. But he had no idea what he was going to find. In fact, there were people that lived here in the area that didn't even know what was behind the mountains because for centuries, people after the Crusades had kept the area of Petra secret and hidden. Even from the local Bedouins?

Yes. And so there were people that lived here that didn't even know it at the time. Indiana Jones knew about it. Yes, if you believe that. But Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, he was traveling as an Arab. So think of a white guy in an Arab costume. And he knew that wouldn't sell for the people that he wanted to see the treasure about. And so he said, well, what I'd like to do is I want to go honor, you know,

ancient ancestors and everything. I want to go sacrifice a goat up in here. And they went along with the story. He had a goat with him. He went up in there and discovered what we're going to be sharing with you tomorrow. The ancient city of Petra. And I tell you what, I was actually very surprised by this. I was shocked. So, you know, now at this point, Doc was the celebrity, and I'm following him now, all right? And everybody's greeting Doc, all right? I'm just standing in the back.

I'm carrying a suitcase for him now. And so they took us. It just happened by God's divine providence that the commissioner of tourism for all of Jordan. Yes, all of Jordan. Was in the building. Yes. And he asked to see us. Yes.

And so we were taken to his executive office, which a spectacular window view of Petra, of Wadi Musa. I mean, as beautiful as this view is here is right now, his was a lot better. Yes. And so when Doc introduced himself, I'm Doc Burkhart, immediately his face lit up. And what did he say to you? I think I'm still real. I forgot what he said. What did he say? He said, you're family. You're back home. Yes. You're back home. You're family.

So it's been a little bit overwhelming today. It really has been. And then because of Doc's name, the favor began. And so then the things that we were hoping we would get, we didn't even ask for it. They were just giving it to us. And he just started giving us favors that we could do things for the next two days here. Yes. So the Holy Spirit has blessed this trip. Every step of the way, he's blessed.

Back home, oh, my, I've got problems. I've got problems over my head. But here, I don't have any problems. I like this here. The Holy Spirit's on the move here. The Holy Spirit is blessing this trip. So what we're going to do, I think, do you have anything else you want to share? No, I'm just excited about seeing the lights at Petra tonight.

That's what we're going to be doing this evening as we make our way from here. We're going to be getting ready for that. And then making plans for tomorrow, our trip into Petra, and to see the wonderful things that we're going to see there. So I just want to encourage our audience. First of all, thank you for all the messages and all the response that we've had to the Godcast over the past few days. Please continue to keep us in prayer. It's your prayers that have, we have little snafus that pop up all the time. If you travel internationally, things are going to go wrong. So those things happen. And, but you know what,

we just kind of slide along with it. That's right. So let me tell you, tell you, if you come here with us, bring cash. Jordan is not a credit card country. Right. In Amman, they have credit cards. But once you get out of the big city, they don't know what credit cards are. You need cash. And so what happened for us today, we went to pay for our rental car. This is a – no, that was yesterday. We went to pay for the rental car in Amman, and their credit card machine was down, and we had to pay cash.

And literally, it took every dollar I had in my wallet. I had to go out into the rental car and get docked and say, do you have any cash? And so we got wiped out. We had no cash just to pay for the rental car. Then we came to Aqaba. And so I had to have our staff back in Vero Beach wire cash to us today. So we spent a couple hours this morning trying to pick up the cash here in Aqaba. And this is the end of Ramadan. And tomorrow is Friday, I think. I think that's where we're at. And so that is a Sabbath for Islam. And then this is near the end of Ramadan.

So it's really a major holiday here. Right, so it's like a three-day weekend here coming up. And if we didn't get our money situation squared away today— We weren't going to have money until Monday. Right. So, anyhow, the Lord worked it out. We're taking care of— We didn't stress about it.

We didn't worry about it. We just knew the Lord was going to work it out, and He did. He did. So we're good to go until Monday. Until Monday. Hey, I think a great grand finale to this episode would be if we bring the camera over and point it down the mountain, and Doc is going to climb down the mountain, and then I'm going to get in the rental car and drive down and pick him up.

Can we reconsider this? Let's pray about this a little bit, okay? We'll save it for tomorrow. All right. That's it from the wonderful, awesome city of Wadi Musa, the Valley of Moses. And if you are, if you have any interest in coming with us next October, email us. and you do info at truenews.com info at truenews.com and just say i'm interested send me some information keep me informed and and we will get you the information as soon as we assemble it we're here this is our scouting trip right and i'm telling you i'm excited you need to come here this is the other side of the holy land look everybody should see the

complete holy land you've got the holy land over in jerusalem and in palestine uh in the nation of the state of israel but this is the other half of the holy land and really you have a lot more access here to things that you do over in Israel. Yeah, we're moving around freely. I mean, I never thought I would stand on top of Mount Elijah where the prophet was taken up into the air. I wasn't even expecting that on this trip. Or to touch the rock that Moses struck. I mean, to actually walk up, put your hand on it.

Hey, I drank the water that came out of that rock. That was awesome. And we have a wonderful guide with us, a young man. And Doc and I love this guy. He is a blessing. Before we leave, I'm going to get him on camera and let you meet him. His name is Bassam. And without him, this trip wouldn't happen. He has organized the entire trip for us. He is our guide. He's driving for us. He interprets for us. And he watches True News every day. Every day. Every day,

he watches True News. And not only does he watch True News, but he personally translates True News every day. Every day. Every day he watches True News. And not only does he watch True News, but he personally translates True News into Arabic. Yes. And sends it out all over the Arabic world. And that's why there are so many Arabs watching True News because of this young man. I want you to meet him. That's it for today. Thank you so much. You've got to watch tomorrow. Tomorrow

is from the ancient city of Petra. I am so pumped and excited about it. I can't wait to get there. And you're going to be there with us by watching tomorrow's edition of True News. For Doc Burkhart, I'm Rick Wiles. God bless you from the city of Wann Musa in Jordan. God bless you. The preceding program was made possible by the faithful prayers and financial support of listeners just like you. To find out how you can help, visit www.truenews.com.