TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Holy Land Day 7: The Revelation Church City of Philadelphia, Today’s Amman

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Today on TruNews, the team ascends The Citadel, an ancient fortress standing guard over the Biblical city of Philadelphia mentioned in Revelation 3, today’s Amman, Jordan. History and Scripture come alive in observing how Christianity was shaped and propelled by first-century influences. The team also visits Amman’s well-preserved Roman Theatre, and also make a trip to the city of As-Salt, visiting several historic sites and churches. Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart. Airdate 5/4/22.Holy 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/49573636Holy Land Day 3: Wadi Musa, Moses’ Spring, and the Gateway to Petra - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49587574Holy Land Day 4: Explorations at Ancient Petra - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49599828Holy Land Day 5: From the Dead Sea to the Mosaic Churches of Madaba - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49630066Holy Land Day 6: The Journey from Mount Nebo to the Jordan River - https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49644875

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. This is True News, and this is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Doc Burkhardt and I are finishing up in the next several days our visit to the wonderful country of Jordan, and we have returned to Jordan's capital, Amman, for the final days, and we are standing atop one of the seven hills of Amman. And I want our cameraman, Lee, to give us a panoramic view across this hilltop.

And I want you to get a good look at what we are seeing from this high point of view. Doc, it's a spectacular view atop this mountain. We're at what is known as the Citadel. And the city that you're seeing from this hilltop is Old Amman. Now, Doc, the Citadel, and not only is it a citadel, but Amman, this is one of the oldest human settlements in the world. Right, that they can trace back continuously inhabited one of the few sites in the world that they can actually say humans have lived at this spot for an extended period of

time. I've seen some historical markers here dating things that we've seen as going back to 5500 BC. Right. And so Amman, originally, the original name, as I understand it, was Rabath Amun. Right. And then later, the Romans under Pompeii changed it to Philadelphia. Right. And then later on, as time went by, it reverted back to the city of Amman, which is the modern city today. The name that we know it today, Amman. And so under Philadelphia, Philadelphia is the city that's in the Bible.

In the Revelation. Yes. In the letters to the seven churches, Philadelphia is one of the churches that Jesus wrote a letter to. It's right here. We are in Philadelphia. We are in Philadelphia. So think about this for the significance of the end times. Amman, Jordan plays a very important role in the last days.

Yes. I mean, it's humbling to actually, you know, read in Revelation chapter 3, the city of Philadelphia, then to be standing right in the center of it. So, Doc, this is known as the Citadel. And behind us is the Temple of Hercules. Yes, situated back behind us. We were remarking, how did they construct this? How did they move these large stones

and build these huge structures back 2,000 years ago? And they had wooden cranes that they cranked by hand, and they were able to lift these rocks up. No, Hercules didn lift these rocks up and No, Hercules didn't lift them up and put them up there But humans did was wooden crane wooden crane what wood and rope on all these? Tons, I mean dozens of tons of rock lift them up in the air. It's amazing Really it is the architecture here is stunning And to know that it is thousands of years old. Various empires have been here. Oh, yes. A number of empires. You had the Nabataeans. You had the Romans. You had...

Was it Umadad? Umadad, yes. And they occupied this in ancient times as well. Occupied by the crusaders for a period of time. Up on this site you have a temple of Hercules, a Byzantine church, and this massive gate that allowed people in and out of access on the top of this hill. If you were the king of this hill, you were the king of the hill. You better believe it. And again, the architecture, just the courtyard leading up to the gate of the castle. Yes. I mean, it's so impressive. You can only imagine what it looked like in those ages when it was alive with human activity and plants and animals that were here. We went through the Jordanian Museum, one of the best museums I've ever been

in. I love museums. And there were artifacts in the museum going back many thousands of years, spears, tools, pottery, cooking pans. What else did we see there? There were statues from the Roman period that were still, I mean, in very good shape. Tombs, coffins. Yes. Skeletons. Yeah, upright coffins made of pottery. They would bury people in basically big clay pots.

Yeah, and there's another place over here on one of the hillsides where there are large coffins, stone coffins lined up. But I had never seen upright coffins as we saw inside the museum. If you come to Jordan, you definitely want to go through the museum. This is one of the stops you need to go to. It is one of the most important historical sites in the world. Well, not only was the Citadel itself, the building, the gateway impressive, we came across the cistern. Now, I know cisterns don't get you excited or anything. This is the biggest cistern I've ever seen. I grew up with cisterns. My granddad and my father had cisterns at their homes.

Remember, many summer days cleaning cisterns. That was a job that we had. But I've never seen anything the size of this cistern. Massive. Water was a, obviously we're in the desert, we're in a barren area. And so water retention and water usage, water conservation, water transportation was a major concern for the people that lived here throughout the ages and they have quite an intricate system to retain water and to transport water i mean they would carve channels out of walls out of the sheer rock to transport water there are a number of little cisterns all over the hilltop here another reason why that cistern is so important is this was a fort, you know, that's what a citadel is, basically a big fort, and you had one way to survive a siege over a period of time if you had to have access to water. Because if you have

water you could get food too, you could grow food, you could do some other things, but if you didn't have water you were gone within a week. But the size of this cistern would accommodate thousands of people for many years. And we saw underground tunnels that led to other cisterns that we couldn't see from the surface. So it was the engineers of this complex spent a lot of time and effort, a lot of human man hours building a public work system. Right. You know, you may have members of the audience asking, well, why is this important? Why are we up here on this particular site?

Well, first of all, it's mentioned in Revelation chapter 3. But think about it, Rick. People like John the Revelator, the other apostles, they may have passed through these gates. Absolutely. I mean, this was a major city in the day. Philadelphia was a major trading point. And there was a church here so important to Jesus Christ that he wrote a letter to it. Yes.

And so that's why we're here to give you a taste of the the times and the places of the bible and to make the bible come alive in your mind and to just imagine the people of jesus day of the first century they were walking on these roads walking on these paths walking through these buildings some of them carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ with them as they walked. And it really, for me, Rick, walking through a number of these places, it doesn't even necessarily have to be a strictly Christian site. It's humbling because you realize that, you know, the times have changed, that the history has changed, but the hearts of men remain the same. That's right. That's right. Something else in honor of the Christians who lived here thousands of years ago is that when Jesus wrote, now this is in the vision that John the Revelator received on the island of Patmos.

In the seven letters to the churches, of the seven churches, Jesus rebuked and criticized five of the seven churches. He commended only two churches for remaining true to him, Smyrna and Philadelphia, which is Amman, Jordan. That's what makes me so excited about this city is that there's something in the last days that God is going to do here in this city of Amman that used to be called Philadelphia at the time of the New Testament Bible days. And I want to be part of it. Whatever the Holy Spirit is getting ready to do, I want to be part of it. He has kept the gospel alive in this city and in this wonderful country for 2,000 years. But something, I believe in my

spirit, something significant is going to come out of Amman, Jordan for the glory of God. Well, we're going to take a stroll across the street and show you an ancient Roman theater that is part of this hillside complex that we're watching. We can see it from here, but we have to walk down to it. So hang on. We'll be there in just a moment. Well, Doc and I have traveled across the street from the Citadel, and we are now standing in front of another ancient Roman theater. I have never seen so many old things in my life, Doc. I guess the last time is when I was in a bingo parlor in Florida. You know, it's amazing how many old things are here. But with me is Bassam and also the manager of the theater.

Mr. Atala. He's Mr. Atala. Atala Rawahna. Mr. Atala Rawahna. All right. And I'm going to ask questions. Bassam is going to ask him in Arabic and then translate to English. So let's start with, this is a Roman theater, so how old is this theater?

How old is this theater? It's about 28 years old. Of course, it was built by the Roman emperor Antonius Bius. طبعاً بينا المدرج الروماني في عهد الأمبراطور الروماني أنتونيوس بيوس دقيقة أشنى أترجم طبعاً المدرج يحتوي في داخله على ثلاث أجزاء هي الساحة الداخلية ومكان تغيير الملابس والصفوف التي يقعد عليها المشاهدين والزوار حسنا ثلاثة أشياء من هذا المدرج

الأولى هي خارج المدرج كانوا يستخدمونها لتغيير الملوكات وثانياً، كما ترون، كانت تحت المدرسة بشكلستخدم لاحتفالات المصارعة والحفلات الغنائية والمبارزة وكان هناك فيه ميزتين داخل اللي هي نقطة الصوت وعملية التليفون لنقل المخابرة بدون ما حدا بيعرف بدون صوت من خلال الجدران الموجودة داخع المدرج الروماني لستة آلاف مشاهد يحتوي على 44 درجة على ثلاث طبقالات المجال الأول المجال الأول يستخدم للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم

المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم

المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الحاكمة وعلية القوم المجال الأول للطبقة الدرجة الثانية للأغنياء طبقة الأغنياء والجيش الطبقة الثالثة للعامة الشعب الأجزاء الأخيرة للعامة الشعب أجزاء أغنياء لا شيء يتغير في عامين من المئات The nosebleed seats. So nothing has changed in thousands of years. Yeah, it's the same.

The same thinking of the people. They're still using the same thinking where the kings have to be in front and to welcoming them in front of everything. There were gladiator fights right here? Yes, the gladiator fight here in front of here, and they are using where we are standing right now for singing parties for the kings. And the kings were standing here. ويقومون بمعارضة المدينة في مكان نحن الآن لتصوير مجالات للملكين والملكين يقومون بمعارضة المدينة في مكانهم ويقومون بمعارضة المسلمين في مكانهم في هذا المنزل

هل يستخدم المدينة اليوم للمغارات والموسيقى والمغارات في المدينة؟ Is the theater still used today for concerts and musicals and theater plays? I'm not asking you to use it today. Until today, there were uses, but there was a corona wave, and some activities were stopped. Now, after Ramadan, you will start some activities, singing, poetry, and folklore, and all kinds of events. وطراتية وفلكلورية ومن جميع أنواع الأفنتات parties for singing and things again. And people are allowed to sit on these seats? Yes, the people, they are allowed, but for us, the last one, okay, but people are allowed to sit in these seats, and we were standing here, they bring some Arabic famous singers and like singing and doing the parties in front of this theater. Amazing.

It really is Rick. Over 2,000 years old and it's it's still in use today. Still standing, still in use. You got to come see it. It's one of the big attractions in Jordan here in the city of Amman. It's across the street from the Citadel. It's all part of one complex at that time. I want to encourage you to make a trip to Jordan. God willing, we're going to be bringing our first tour group in October of 2022. And if you're interested, email us at info at truenews.com, info at truenews.com. Tell us you're interested. Just say, keep me on the mailing list. Give me information about the dates and the prices and the itinerary.

And we will be sending information to you in the weeks ahead. Doc and I are here in Jordan scouting out this beautiful country. You will love the country. More than that, you will love the Jordanian people. They are gracious and kind. I can't tell you, Doc, how many times strangers have invited me to dinner Meet strangers and start talking and the first thing they say is would you come to my house for dinner? Come to my house. The Jordanian people are wonderful. I want to thank our guests today for being here You are welcome to your second home country Thank you for this real beautiful visit to Jordan أنت مرحباً بك في بلدك الثاني شكراً لك على هذا المزيد من المشاهدات في جردن قل للناس الأمريكيين، تعالوا وزورونا في جردن

كنت أراكم من خلال هذا القناة أنتم مرحباً بكم في جردن who is watching us through this channel. You are really welcome to Jordan. All right. You just got a personal invitation from the manager of this Roman theater. Come to Jordan and visit it. All right, we're going to take another ride, and Bassam, he's the driver. I'm not sure where he's even taking us now,

but we'll let you know in just a minute. Stay tuned. You'll see more of the True News adventure in the country of Jordan. Stay with us. Our next stop is the ancient city of Alsalt. Now, that's not table salt. It's Alsalt, A-L-S-A-L-T. Another spelling is A-S-S-A-L-T. Another spelling is A-S-S-A-L-T.

And it comes from a Latin word that means forest. Although there are no forests here at the present time, apparently there was a forest here many centuries ago. And Assault was an ancient salt trading city, and it's on the main highway between Amman, Jordan, and Jerusalem. Now, no one knows for sure when the city was founded, but some people believe that it was built by the Macedonian army during the reign of Alexander the Great. So I'm going to join Doc Burkhart, and he is with the local director of tourism for the city of Assault. We're speaking with one of the directors of the Assault Museum here in Assault, Jordan. Assault does not mean salt as in the kind of salt you see all around but it's

from the word salt which means forest. So we have one of the directors of the museum here in the city of Salt. So you are welcome here to the Salt City. So the Salt is one of the famous cities here in the whole of the Jordan that is because it is the first political capital that is founded in 1921. So that's also, we are standing in the Abu Jaber House, which is the museum right now, which was built for Saleh Nasr Abu Jaber, and after that it goes to tourism. Now it's a museum, it's talking about the history of the Salt City and the traditions of the salt. And it's talking about the Harmony Trail. It's one of the trails for the Salt City.

And actually, it's looking for one of the three main mountains for the Salt City. It's behind me that it belongs to the Castle Mountain. That belongs to the Ottoman castle in that times and after and also it's looking for one of the church here in the salt city it's belong for that Protestant Church and with the left hand of me that is for Latin Church and also we will go to the other church or San Giorgio's Church so this building that we're in right now the in the modern era, this was where the British actually declared to the Bedouins and everything, hey, you're independent from the Ottoman Empire,

right? Is that right? Right. We're talking about the history about that, that house was built in 1892 to 1906. It takes 14 years to build it so if we're talking about the history about that assault the empire that he told me that in 1917 that the first world war was having here in the salt city with the australian and the british army when they're coming here to the salt city with the ottomans in that times and the ottomans is gone in that time also. So the first King Abdullah in

that times in 1921 when he's coming and Abu Jabir house he's invited him into his house of three months as a guest here. They have a meeting in the Latin church actually with head of the tribes of the region of Belga. So in that time, Laodosalt is the first political capital, and also the Transjordan. We're now being led up the very steep staircase of the king's house, and it's called the king's house because King Abdullah I, I guess he would be the grandfather of the present king, King Abdullah, lived in the king's house briefly for a few months in 1921 after Great Britain left the area.

And it was the end of the British Mandate. And for a while, Jordan was known as Transjordan. So let's see where Doc is going and what he's going to see next. We're heading in our way over to the church, but on the way we wanted to make a stop here because you might have noticed all the different types of dresses and costumes and everything that people here in the region wear. But here in the Salt region, they have their own style.

And I have the director of the museum here with me. He's going to talk to us a little bit about the specific style of dresses that the women wear here in this area in ancient times and really close to the modern times. Tell us, what do we have here behind us, sir? So actually, it's a traditional clothes for the woman, for the Salty woman. It's called khalagam. Now, this is a big dress.

I mean, it's what, three meters tall? Three and a half meters, actually. So tell us, why such a large piece of fabric? It's because the woman of the Salty City, we make it as a queen. She's the queen of the family, the queen of the Salt City. So each woman, she will get one for the whole of her life. She gets that when she gets married? Yes, surely.

And also, if you want to change or to know more about that, there's two hats that we call it osba. There's two colors for it also. Do you know this is for the young ladies and this is for the old ladies, the black and the red one. Now, this particular outfit here, now, of course, they folded up and everything. We actually have one of them over here. Would you like to kind of explain it to us how does it all work so as we're talking about it's three and a half meters if she's wear it it will be very tall and it will walking through on the wall on the floor so she's making the three layers the three layers is it like this zone, she's wearing it, she's holding it with her teeth.

And then she's tied it with this belt here. This belt is called actually Safita. Safita. Yes, with the nature colors. And then she's made it like this. And after that, she's got the left hand, or we're talking the left sleeve, she's put it on her head. And I'm talking about the two colors of the same hat. Is it ospa? Is it right there?

The two colors, it belongs for the young ladies and the old ladies. And actually, it's made from silk and silver. Silk and silver. Silk and silver. Yes. And then she's tied it on her head and after that she's got the right one and put it on her head. And if you can see, she has a sign here. This sign should be in the middle of the head.

That means she's wearing it correctly because there's also a line. The line should be in the middle of the head. That means she's wearing it correctly because there's also a line. The line should be in the middle of the back. Now this particular costume has many uses. It's not just decoration. Like you said, this is something that the woman receives when she's married and she has it, you know, for life basically. What are some of the other uses that this particular outfit has? So firstly, if she's pregnant, you will not know if she's pregnant or not. If she's got a baby, she will put the baby inside it. If she's very beautiful, at that time, so she will cover her face. And after that, if she goes to the fields, if she's got a wood, she's put the wood inside it and hold it and goes to her home. Well, this is fascinating. It's one of the many things that we're learning here on our trip as we go along.

And the traditional dressing, the sultan drink, the kalaka, am I saying that right? Kalaka. Kalaka, yes. And it's really fascinating to see all the different elements. And, you know, when we talk about being here in the Holy Land and visiting all these different sites, we also need to bring in some of the cultural elements like the way people dress. So I hope you enjoyed this explanation. We're still on our way over to the church, so we're heading that way now.

Our next stop is the Latin Church. It's the first Catholic church in Jordan. It includes a monastery and missionary facilities, also a private school. The church was designed in 1870 and completed in the year 1886, so it's actually a fairly new church here in Jordan. Doc and I are so used to seeing churches that are 1,500 years old that if you see one that's only less than 200 years old, it's not that old to us right now. But we are going to walk through the upper level of the Latin church, and then we're going to go downstairs into the underground church, which was built first. And that's the part that fascinates me. These underground churches are

absolutely stunning to be inside. And, you know, we walked around in this church and just tried to get a feel of what it was like in those days to be a Christian here in Jordan. You know, at one point we saw one engraving that said at a certain time, I believe in the 19th century, 50% of the people of the city were Christians. I think now it's down to about 30% of the population is Christians. And then after we leave here, we're going to go over to the Church of St. George, St is a much older church. The official name is Al-Qadar Church, but it's known as the St. George Church. And it was built in 1862 inside an ancient cave. And there are still today folklore stories among the local people that this cave was a place of miracles, where Jesus Christ performed miracles for the saints of God. In fact, one miracle that the people here claim happened is that there's a footprint in the rock on the floor that they said appeared, and the footprint is supposed to be the footprint of St. George, and they said it

appeared when he mounted a horse. So there are many stories here about the miracles that took place inside this church. And this was one of the most delightful places to spend time today, walking around, looking at this very old church where the saints of God were gathered here to worship the Lord. And the local tourism director told us that the church is a place where Muslims and Christians to this day come together to pray and that it has a reputation of being a holy place where God meets his people and performs miracles. Well, we are standing on a tall hill in the city of Salt. And my dear friend, I think I've discovered that Salt does not mean forest. It means hills. Hills everywhere. We've been climbing hills and this entire city is built on hills and you can get a viewpoint here of the entire city around us is sitting

on various levels of hillsides. If we're looking this direction what are we seeing over here? Right there is the first secondary school in the Jordan. It's called Salt Secondary School. My dad, me, and my brother also graduated from that school. Okay, so that's the building right there. Yes. So, the church that we went into, the one, the underground, is right down there.

The 13th church, yes. And way across there, on the horizon, what do we see? Actually, we will see one of the mountains. It belongs to one of the prophets. It's called Jad. Jad the prophet. His tomb is in this mountain. Can you see Israel, Jerusalem from here?

Actually, no. We will not see it. If we go to the west of the salt city, we will see it from the top of the hill of the salt cities, 1,100 meters above the sea. We will see the mountains of Palestine and the river of Jordan, and also we will see the Dead Sea. And how close are we to, which direction is Syria? The Syria is, it will be right there at the north of Assault. How far away is Syria? It takes six hours, five hours from here.

Five hours driving time, okay. Well, I want to thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Now, the tourism ministry of the City of Salt has arranged for our exploratory, the Burkhart exploration team. Yes, because my name popped up again today. Yes. You know the name Burkhart, don't you? Yeah. So, Burkhart is one of the searchers that he wrote about the Salt City here in the Salt.

And his great great grandson came here today yes so he's an honorary citizen of the city so the the city tourism ministry has arranged for us to have an authentic arabic dinner so basam tell us tell us where are we going for dinner and i'll let you talk in his microphone. Okay, we're going to go right now to Om Muhammad, which is, she's a local lady from Sal City, and she will cook for us a Jordanian food. You can imagine the Jordanian hospitality in this home. He's like a restaurant, and we can, this lady is just like working with the Ministry of Tourism, with Mr. But her restaurant is inside her house.

Yes. And you can feel and see the Jordanian hospitality of feeding the people. Well, let me tell you, the Jordanian people like to eat. I think, you know, every day I thought, man, I walked off a lot of calories. And then that night we gain it all back. We need it back, you know, because everybody wants to feed you here. And the food is is absolutely delicious. Yes. You will love Jordanian food. Well, that's it for today. True news coming to you from the wonderful, beautiful country of Jordan, the other side of the Holy Land.

We'll be back tomorrow. 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.trinews.com.