Welcome to the Red Sea Resort of Eilat, Israel

It is February 23, 2011 and while I write this it is 3:18 in the afternoon in Orange. I am in Eilat, Israel at the Red Sea and it is 11:18 at night. We left Frankfurt this morning with temperatures in the low 20’s Fahrenheit. We arrived in Tel Aviv to temperatures in the 60’s. Eilat is a beach resort so tomorrow is supposed to be about 80 degrees. We will get up at 5:30 a.m. here (Thursday) or at 9:30 on your Wednesday evening. After breakfast at 7:30 a.m. we will go by bus to the ancient city of Petra in Jordanian territory about two hours away from our hotel. Jordan is visible to the eye from the city of Eilat, beginning only 10 minutes from the hotel. Not to be concerned, the protests in Jordan have been in Amman which is far north of us. The ancient city of Petra is not to be found in the Bible because that was not the name at the time. This area is within four miles of the rock that Moses struck to get water for the people of Israel on their way from Egypt to Canaan. More about that tomorrow. Most people who have read the Left Behind series think that Petra is in the Bible because the Jews are taken there during the Great Tribulation fictional account in that novel series. The Bible says that God protects His people in the wilderness, and the authors had to come up with a place so they chose Petra since it is in the mountains east of Jerusalem. Most of you have seen some of that city because you watched Indiana Jones in the movie The Last Crusade

 Also, strangely enough, the Gideons’ appeared again in today's events as I was reading an article from an archeological journal.  The author of the article said he had met some Gideons’ at his hotel and somehow they had discussed the passage from Revelation that said unbelievers would be separated from the Lord in the Lake of Fire for all eternity. This Jewish archeologist was reacting to these nice people who unfortunately took the Bible far too literally. It is amazing to me that with all of the evidence around them that shows that the Bible is literally true in all of its archaeology and history, that they would take the Bible any other way than literal unless the Bible said it was speaking symbolically.