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instead of trudging over it for 40 years, as our forefathers did.
But we did get a taste of "roughing it" down thru that
desolate wilderness. We later took a three-day tour down to PETRA,
the mysterious, awe-inspiring ancient city built in a Rock, called
the Rose-Red City half as old as Time. We traveled in the comfort
of a modern Ford automobile, but even so it was a slow, jolting,
dusty journey---half of it over primitive dirt-and-rock roads,
around narrow ledges on sharp "figure-8" curves on steep canyon-
sides. The last 4 miles going in and coming out were ridden on
horseback, thru the narrow single-file Siq, with solid rock walls
rising straight above us for hundreds of feet. I'll have much to
tell you, later, about fantastic Petra---a now deserted city that
was carved out of solid rock, in a recessed hide-away surrounded
by its own impenetrable wall of mountains.
But first, we flew over to Baghdad, so we could take an
automobile tour from there to see with our own eyes how the Word of
God has been fulfilled in His sentence on ancient Babylon. I can
now give you my personal testimony that, as God said would happen,
it is an absolute desolation---even the few ruins now visible have
been excavated from above,---and not a man lives there. The Iraq
government maintains a small museum at the site of the ruins, with
a single custodian. But he told me he does not live there, and
rides to the museum on his donkey each day. And it's a fact, as
the Bible said it would be---not an Arab will even pitch his tent
there!
We have been all along the Street called Straight, where
Saul of Tarsus was led after God struck him blind, in Damascus. We
even saw the place where they lowered Paul through a high window in
the wall, and he was let down outside the city when he had to flee
for his life. Beyond doubt Paul went from there direct to Petra,
where he spent the unaccounted for 3 years with Christ. We thought
of that, when we were in Petra---and how undoubtedly that is the
very place where WE shall spend from 3« to 7 years during the Great
Tribulation and possibly also the terrible Day of the Lord, soon to
come---IF we are close to God instead of this pleasure-man world---
if we are praying always, and WATCHING, and accounted worthy to
escape the things that are coming on the earth! During our visit
there, we became more than ever convinced of the probability that
Petra is the place God will take us. And, if so, our advance visit
and inspection was VERY NECESSARY, in order that proper
preparations may be made.
We visited Tyre and Sidon, and God's great prophecies
concerning those cities are truly clear to me now. My television
program on Tyre excited more interest, and brought a heavier mail
response, than any other TV program. But at that time I had to get
many of my facts about the present condition of Tyre second-hand,
and I was not able, in that way, to get the picture clearly in
mind. This shows how IMPORTANT it is, if I am to shout out the
TRUTH of these prophecies and Christ's Gospel to the world, and
SHOW these things on TV, that I visit these places myself and get
all the facts straight and clearly in mind. Actually, the true
facts show the prophecy fulfilled even MORE effectively than I had
been told, and had explained on radio and TV. The amphitheatre and