Watchman on the Wall

Josh Davis: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne, and prayer changes things.

This week, we're headed to the Middle East, specifically Israel and Jordan with our Southwest Radio Ministries team as we present our brand new resource, "In the Land." Later this week, Donald Perkins will continue his fascinating series, "Understanding Revelation," and Josh Davis will wrap up our week together with the latest headlines from the end times.

Friend, summer is always one of the most difficult times of the year for ministries like Southwest. While giving often slows, the need to proclaim the gospel never does. If you've been blessed by this ministry, would you prayerfully send your best gift today? Your generosity helps us continue broadcasting biblical truth, teaching God's word, and reaching people with the hope of Jesus Christ. Please give now at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. Thank you for standing with Southwest Radio Ministries.

Step into the land of the Bible with five teachers filmed on location in the Holy Land. SWRC is pleased to bring you the "In the Land" video project. Today, you'll hear portions of each teaching, plus some background information about this exciting new resource. From the Sea of Galilee to Petra, let's join this amazing adventure into God's word.

Greetings friends. Back in 2023, Southwest Radio Ministries was privileged to partner with a professional film crew and travel to the Holy Land. And while we were there, we were able to film several different Bible teaching series. We released the first of those projects sometime over a year ago, "Pilgrimage to Zion," featuring Larry Stam.

I am excited to let you know the next project is now available from Southwest Radio Ministries. It's called "In the Land." There are five different speakers in five different locations, taking you to places that few Christians will ever get to see in this lifetime. These are all filmed with a professional film crew on location in the Holy Land, bringing you God's word.

On today's Watchman on the Wall episode, we're going to listen to snippets from each of these five presentations. It's something of a Bible prophecy conference that was hosted in the land of Israel, featuring timeless content from some wonderful Bible teachers. The first that we're going to hear from today is our Watchman on the Wall host, Dr. Larry Spargimino, as he sits atop Mount Arbel near the Sea of Galilee.

Many people think that this is the location where Jesus gave the Great Commission. But Pastor Larry is looking at Israel's role in Bible prophecy by looking at one key chapter in Ezekiel's prophecy. So let's listen to Pastor Larry as he explains some truth from God's word.

Larry Spargimino: And then verse 12 gives the reason to the Jewish people. Therefore, prophesy and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, behold, oh my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, oh my people, and brought you up out of your graves.

Verse 14: "And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land. Then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it," saith the Lord. As I look at these wonderful promises for Israel, my whole attitude toward the Old Testament has changed. It's been a wonderful pilgrimage for me. I've traveled a great distance theologically.

Friends, when we come to the point where we can look at the whole word of God and we say, "I love this book, I want to understand this book, I want to proclaim this book in Sunday school, I want people to see and to know the great truths that are therein," I think that's the promise that God has for us if we study His word.

Josh Davis: Friends, you've just been listening to a snippet from Dr. Larry Spargimino. This is called "In the Land." It's a brand new video resource available right now from Southwest Radio Ministries. You can get a copy of this by going to our website, swrc.com. On the website, this new project is available in two different formats.

First, it's available as a DVD. Five teachers, over 90 minutes worth of teaching, filmed in 4K high quality digital video, edited by professional video editors. It is to the best of our complete ability, and we know that you will be blessed by it. So you can purchase the DVD on our website.

But you don't have to wait for a DVD to arrive in the mail. You can also purchase a digital download right there on our website, swrc.com. Whether that's on your smartphone or computer, whatever it may be, as soon as you complete your purchase, you will be sent the link where you can download this project and enjoy it immediately.

It's called "In the Land." It's available at swrc.com, or give us a call, 1-800-652-1144, and request the "In the Land" DVD over the phone. Next, we're going to hear from Bible teacher and Jewish follower of Jesus, Larry Stam, as he kicks off his teaching from another unique location in Israel.

Larry Stam: Shalom, friends. Larry Stam here, coming to you from the Holy Land, Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and specifically coming to you from the Golan Heights, a strategic place in the modern State of Israel. In today's study, I want to ask you a question. Do the events of the day, the pandemonium and chaos of today's events in the world, discourage you and get you down?

Well, I want to encourage you in this Bible study that we're about to embark on. I hope that you are refreshed in God's word, focusing on the promises of God. Because I want you to know, friends, that the way things are is not the way things will be in the soon-coming future. We're going to study Psalm 2 today.

This is a royal Psalm. It's a beautiful Psalm about the future reign of Messiah. I am reading Psalm 2, beginning in verse 1. The word of God says, "Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.'

"He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath and distress them in His deep displeasure. Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to Me, 'You are My Son. Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance and the ends of the earth for Your possession.

"You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.' Now therefore, be wise, O kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."

Again, as I mentioned, this is a royal Psalm. And as we start, the context is things appear to be falling apart, but they're actually falling into place. Because remember, history is His story, and God is in control. In God's providence, things are unfolding exactly the way they should. So to us, in the current chaos and pandemonium of the day, things are falling apart, but make no mistake, they're not actually falling apart. They're falling into place.

Josh Davis: Friends, that was Larry Stam, our good friend and collaborator with Southwest Radio Ministries. He's just getting into the good part of his teaching, but we're just highlighting previews. Stay tuned to future Watchman on the Wall episodes, as we will hear more and more from these kinds of folks.

Including tomorrow's program, we're going to listen to a lot more of what Pastor Larry Spargimino had to say from Mount Arbel near the Sea of Galilee on Ezekiel chapter 36. Next up, we're going to visit with Mic Van Huss. Mic is the director of Southwest Radio Ministries' Marginal Mysteries. In his "In the Land" presentation, he took some very common questions that he's been asked about Bible mysteries and gave them an answer. Let's listen to Mic's answers to a couple of key questions.

Mic Van Huss: Mic Van Huss here with Southwest Radio Ministries. I'm the executive producer of Marginal Mysteries, and I'm here at the Sea of Galilee on this beautiful evening. So what I want to do tonight is we have a list of questions that people have about the Bible, some mysterious questions about things that people just don't understand about Scripture. So we'll go through these questions one by one and see if we can't talk around the issue, maybe even have some answers for some of the questions.

Our first question: "What is the light that was created on Day 1 of creation?" On Day 4 of creation is when God created the sun, the moon, and the stars. And so if God created the sun on Day 4, then this light that is created on Day 1 cannot be the sun. So what is Scripture talking about when that happens?

So first, let's look at that instance where light is created. We're going to the very beginning, Genesis chapter 1, verse 2: "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good."

What I think this light was, obviously it wasn't the sun, and I don't think it was a physical light that we can see. There are a number of passages in Scripture that tell us that God is light and that we should be followers of the light instead of darkness. So let's look at some of those and maybe be able to answer our question.

Our first reference is John chapter 8, verse 12. In John chapter 8, verse 12, it says, "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, 'I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.'" Our next verse is 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 5: "Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness."

And the last reference we'll look at in trying and answer this question is 1 John chapter 1, verse 5: "This then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." So when God creates light on Day 1, it is likely the presence of God coming to our creation, the orb of water that is sitting there in space.

Can mankind exist without God's light? Did God have a specific plan for humankind so that His light was here so that humans could experience His light and be in light instead of darkness? His glory, maybe, is a better way of putting it. So that's my theory on answering the question of what is this light in Genesis, the first day of creation.

Another question along with creation is how long is a day of creation? I do believe that each day of creation is exactly what Scripture says, and that is a day. First of all, a lot of people will say it's a thousand years per day because as later in Scripture says, a day is as a thousand years. But it also says in Scripture, a thousand years is as a day. So those cancel each other out. I don't think you can really use that to mean much at all.

Another reason I don't think that a day of creation was a thousand years is the fact that I don't think Adam rested for a thousand years on Day 7. I think Adam got to work right away after the day of rest. Let's take a look at Scripture. There is some Scripture to back up that creation is literal days, and that would be Exodus chapter 20, verse 11.

"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." So right here in Scripture, God says that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. And this is separate from the account in Genesis. This is another book, this is Exodus. I have no reason to believe that the day in Genesis means anything other than a day.

The opposite side of this argument is synonymous with the gap theory, that there's a gap between Genesis 1:2a and 2b. I believe there is a gap between 1:2a and 2b, but I don't believe it's the evolution gap. People say that evolution happened before creation and that all this stuff took place before creation. But I do believe there's a gap of time between those two, but it doesn't allow for evolution because the earth is only an orb of water at this point.

Honestly, the only reason for a Christian that I can see a motivation to even want to believe in a day meaning something other than a day in Scripture is to try to want to fit in with the world to believe in evolution. There's no reason not to take God at His word when He says He created on Day so-and-so. I think the Bible's a whole lot more literal than a lot of people give credit for.

Josh Davis: Friends, that was Mic Van Huss, the director of Southwest Radio Ministries' Marginal Mysteries branch. And he is answering a couple of questions. Now in his whole presentation, he answers many, many more. And you're listening to this brand new project that we have available from Southwest Radio Ministries, filmed on location in the Holy Land with a professional film crew.

It's been professionally edited. We make that available to you now. You can go to our website, swrc.com, and purchase it in two different formats. We have a DVD available, plus we have the digital video download available so that you can watch this instantly from your computer, from your smartphone.

The next two sessions will take us out of Israel into the land of Jordan to two very unique and special biblical sites. Next up is yours truly. I'm in the land of Petra and exploring Petra's role in history and Bible prophecy. On this little clip that you're going to hear momentarily, I'm looking at Matthew 24 and Jesus' prophetic message about the abomination of desolation, and I tie that into the book of Revelation and how Petra could come into play.

Jesus tells His disciples in verse 15, "When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him understand. Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe to them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be."

He talks about the abomination of desolation spoken by Daniel the prophet. Daniel speaks about this abomination of desolation at least three times in the book of Daniel in the prophetic sections. And of course, this was famously and historically fulfilled in part by a man named Antiochus Epiphanes during the intertestamental period, the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Antiochus Epiphanes went into Jerusalem and defaned the temple that was standing in that day. He sacrificed a pig upon the altar, profaning and defaming the sacrifice of Almighty God. And so the Jews were very revolted and upset by this, and it led them to a revolution. And they began to rebel and revolt against his authority, and they began to overthrow his rule. And we see someone like Judas Maccabeus and others that were involved in that revolt in that period of time.

Yet there is a future fulfillment. Because Jesus is speaking future here. He's not pointing back to what had happened in the past. He's pointing to the future and says it is still future, there's still something future about this prophecy. And so we see that this goes on to be developed later on in the book of Revelation.

John, the one who writes the book of Revelation, begins to describe a scene where there is a woman who has a child. The woman has a crown of twelve stars on her head. Most Bible scholars believe this to be a reference to the nation of Israel. And the child would be Jesus Christ, the Christ, the Messiah. She being with child, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered, there appeared another wonder in heaven; behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.

And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. She brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up unto God and to His throne. That's why they say that this is a reference to Jesus in this passage, because it's a child to be born to rule the world and that was caught up to God. And we see that's exactly where Jesus is while John is writing this marvelous passage of Scripture.

Here it is in verse 6 where people see Petra coming into play. And I'll describe this a little bit more. So I just want to explain the Scriptures to you and then come back and give some explanation of how does Petra tie into these kinds of things. Here in verse 6 we read, "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days."

1,260 days. So that's three and a half years. If you're familiar with the Scriptures, you understand that the Great Tribulation period of time is for a seven-year period. And again, that goes back to the prophecy in the book of Daniel. Other prophecies contained elsewhere in Scriptures tell us that the Great Tribulation period will be a seven-year period. For this three and a half years, the woman, a reference most believe to Israel, will flee into the wilderness to a place that God has prepared for her.

I'm just giving you a little tease of the kinds of content that you're going to hear and experience and see in high definition 4K digital video. It's on the "In the Land" brand new video project released now by Southwest Radio Ministries. We're excited to bring this to you. It's chock-full of different kinds of content, all filmed on location in the Holy Land.

Just hearing the voices does not do this project justice. You need to see these things to experience them. One of our filmmakers was able to get on the back of a camel and ride through some of the ravines in Petra as we were filming this, and you can get a glimpse of the movement and the feel for the land. I encourage you to check out the "In the Land" video project at swrc.com. It's available as a digital download, also as a DVD.

And if you'd like to give us a call and order the DVD over the phone, we are more than happy to help you with that. The phone number toll-free, 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Well, we remain in the country of Jordan and go to another important place. It's Mount Nebo. And Clayton Van Huss, our archaeologist, will describe exactly what is significant about this location and some of the people who are involved with this particular site.

Clayton Van Huss: I'm so glad that you've joined us for our "In the Land" prophecy conference. I'm Clayton Van Huss, and I want to talk to you today about a star and a scepter, about a prophecy in the Old Testament. Now, we all love Bible prophecy. And oftentimes, when we think of Bible prophecy, we think about the future. We think about things that are going to happen maybe in our lifetimes, maybe somewhere down the road.

And so we talk about that a lot. We're excited about it. We're interested. Sometimes we forget that the Bible is full of prophecy that has been fulfilled. And I think that if we look at that prophecy in the Bible, the things that have happened, the things that God said would happen and then did happen, we can have hope and confidence in the things that He says will happen that we look forward to.

I come here across the river to the land of Israel and I dig in the summers at the site of Tel Shiloh. That's ancient Shiloh in the Bible. That's where the Tabernacle stood and the Ark of the Covenant sat for over 300 years. God has given me the opportunity to come and dig through the land with my own hands. It's one thing to come to the land and to see the sites.

It's another thing to come here and to be able to put your hands on things, to be able to pick up a piece of an oil lamp from the Iron Age near where you think the Tabernacle might have stood. And then you remember the story of a little boy who was there, a prophet during the Iron Age, and he heard his name called one night audibly. Did he get up and light a lamp? This little piece that I'm holding, is that a piece of Samuel's lamp?

These are the things you think of. But this is how real the Bible is. We can see the context of the Bible. And where we're standing today is a very important spot in the Bible. This is Pisgah. This is Mount Nebo. This is where Moses came up from Shittim. He came up and he looked out over the land and God allowed him to see the land, even though he was not allowed to enter it.

He saw from the north to the south. He saw all the way to the west to the Mediterranean Sea. God showed him the land that the people of Israel would enter. There was another prophet who came up this mountain. He came up a bit before this happened, not long before. But this prophet's name was Balaam.

Josh Davis: Friends, that was Clayton Van Huss describing as he is just getting into this magnificent prophecy from Numbers 24:17 about a star and a scepter. It has much more to do with Balaam. I apologize that we had to be brief with that, but stay tuned to Watchman on the Wall as the weeks roll on, we're going to be featuring some more of this great content.

But you can purchase the "In the Land" video series and enjoy this for many, many years to come. Friends, when you purchase this kind of project from Southwest Radio Ministries, you are enabling us to do much more of these kinds of things. And we thank you for your response in showing your support for this kind of biblically based Bible teaching content by purchasing the "In the Land" project from our ministry.

If you'd like to get the DVD, it's available at swrc.com. But you can also get the digital video download instantaneously, watch it from your smartphone, from your computer, enjoy it for many years to come. It's available at swrc.com, or give us a call at 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144 and request your copy of the "In the Land" Bible prophecy conference filmed on location in Israel. And join us again on tomorrow's Watchman on the Wall program as we take a deeper look into what Pastor Larry Spargimino had to say in his special presentation from this "In the Land" series.

Guest (Male): Have you ever wished you could stand on the Mount of Olives, gaze across the Sea of Galilee, or explore the ancient city of Petra without leaving your home? Well, now you can with "In the Land," the brand new DVD and digital download from Southwest Radio Ministries. Filmed on location throughout Israel and Jordan, this breathtaking presentation features five trusted Bible teachers: Dr. Larry Spargimino, Larry Stam, Mic Van Huss, Josh Davis, and Clayton Van Huss as they bring God's word to life from the very places where biblical history unfolded.

You'll gain fresh insight into Bible prophecy, archaeology, and the people and places of Scripture. Whether you're preparing for a trip to Israel or simply want to experience the Holy Land from home, "In the Land" will deepen your faith and enrich your understanding of God's word. Order your DVD or digital download today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Experience the Bible where it happened with "In the Land."

Josh Davis: Tomorrow, we'll continue our adventure in the land, so be sure to tune in. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. To learn more, visit swrc.com.