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More Science and the Bible: Asher's Oil
Good Morning, Folks!
I trust you had a good night's rest and are rarin' to go today! Grab your cup of Starbuck's -- or some other real, (not store-bought) fresh-ground coffee. <grin>
A number of years ago Della and I were introduced to a Houston oilman, Andrew "Andy" SoRelle, Jr., and his wife, Maxine. What a pair! Andy had grown up in the oil industry, taking over from his father, Andrew Sorelle, Sr., and gaining a reputation with Shell Oil Company -- among others -- for his unorthodox methods in finding oil.
Andy's story goes back -- way back, actually -- to WWII, when he was piloting fighter aircraft into Germany, shooting down Luftwaffe planes that were trying to bomb Allied positions. On a return flight to England, Andy's plane got shot, strafed by enemy fire, and he lost his rudder, along with all of his control surfaces. Now, any of you readers who are pilots know when that happens, you start speaking in tongues immediately! If God doesn't intervene, you've got maybe a minute to get things right with the Lord before the plane digs a trench in some farmer's field, or you wind up as shark bait at the bottom of the ocean. Andy's growing-up hadn't been particularly Biblically-oriented, and the words, "Sunday School," WERE speaking in tongues for him. Nevertheless, he did what Albert Einstein talked about.
You remember Einstein? E=mc2? What most folks don't remember is that he once said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in every individual that ONLY God can fill." Andy SoRelle didn't know anything about Einstein's comment, but he started screaming out for God to fill the vacuum in his life. "God, if you are real, and you can get me out of this alive, I promise I will give my life to you." With mere seconds to go before the fighter aircraft pancaked in some French vineyard, the plane flew into a fog bank and he lost all sense of direction. For something like an hour, the plane kept flying......in fog. Not until he neared the airfield in England did the weather clear, and Andy realized that the Lord had literally carried his broken aircraft back across France and the English Channel -- WITH NO CONTROL SURFACES available. Andy couldn't steer the plane, he couldn't set a compass direction, he couldn't raise or lower flaps -- NOTHING!! Nevertheless, his plane guided perfectly to the runway, landed, and came to a stop with him safe and sound. His commanding officer and fellow-fighter pilots looked in disbelief at the aircraft. His C.O. said, "This is impossible! This plane can't fly!" Andy's story, along with accompanying photos of him and the "can't fly" aircraft, made it into numerous newspapers, and finally was published in its entirety in Guideposts' Magazine in the late 1960's.
We won't take the time to cover Andy's actual submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, but suffice it to say, he didn't keep his promise to the Lord for more than fifteen years. When he did commit his life to Jesus Christ, stupendous changes took place in his life. But that's another story for another time.
My recollection is that it was in the mid-to-late 1970's when he and Maxine were in Tel Aviv, vacationing at the Sheraton Hotel. One morning, he opened his Bible to a strange verse of Scripture: "...Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil." It struck him as really odd, so he said, "Lord, are you saying that there is oil in Israel?" Considering that was where he was, he decided -- just for grins -- to take a look at an old Biblical map to see where the ancient boundaries were for the tribe of Asher. Turns out that those boundaries made Asher look like a boot. The toe of the boot fell just south of present-day Haifa.
Being something of an adventurous type, Andy decided to spend some of his own fortune and do some test drillings in the area. After some wrangling with the Israeli government -- whose Minister of Energy thought the whole idea was a crackpot idea -- for nearly three years, Andy was finally granted a drilling permit, and in 1979 began drilling at the very edge of the geographical toe: at the River of Crocodiles.
Andy had to be an adventurer. After months of drilling, broken drill bit after drill bit because of volcanic material he kept running into, he was finally down to 13,000 feet. Out of pipe (casing), and having spent some $8 Million + of his own money, his crew said to him, "Andy, it was a good try. Sorry it didn't work out." Now this was a crew that had been with him for many years, and seen him come through some amazing circumstances and obstacles to find oil in the most obscure places. Nevertheless, experience told them they had spent a lot of time and money for nothing. Andy had simply misread the Scripture. That passage certainly didn't mean petroleum oil. It was a reference to olive oil. That was the kind of oil that Asher was known for historically.
Right.
Funny, isn't it, how we let our education and experience, and our book learning get in the way when we ought to be listening to the Lord. But Andy didn't.
"Fellas, we're staying with it. Just keep drilling. It's volcanic, so the material is hard enough to stay together without having to run casing." OK. The boss is nuts, but he's paying the bills.
So they kept drilling. 15,000 feet. 17,000 feet. 19,000 feet. "Andy, this is crazy! Nobody's ever found oil at this depth in this region. It just ain't there!"
After 13 months of drilling, they struck oil. At 20,328 feet! Now, here's where it really gets interesting.
The oil was so pure, it was the color of honey. I know. I've seen samples of it. As soon as I saw the sample Andy showed me, I said to him, "Andy, it sure gives you a whole new take on "a land flowing with milk and honey."
Ahhh.....but we haven't even scratched the surface.
Andy had spent some $13 Million of his own money -- and he didn't have much left. So he picked up the equipment and headed back to the U.S. to see if he could raise some money to drill some producing wells. Of course there had to be geological analysis of the region in order to determine the viability of such a project. Andy went back to the area in the early 1980's with some experimental sounding equipment developed by another friend of ours, the scientist, Dr. Joseph O'Neil. As they began to map the oil deposits, they realized that they were sitting on top of a world-class find. The pool extended out under the Mediterranean for more than a hundred miles. It traveled through a fault line under the city of Haifa across northern Israel, gradually rising in Jordan and reaching into Iraq. Turns out this pool of oil was the primary source of the oil for some of the Middle East's major oil producing countries. (Whewww.....talk about the politics of the situation!!!!!)
But these are just the material facts. Let's now get to the Scriptural aspects, the scientific aspects of this oil find.
While Andy was mapping the region, he was visited by a group of Rabbis and professors from Jerusalem University. "Mr. SoRelle," they said, "We think you need to see what we've discovered."
Well, of course the oil find was front page news on the Jerusalem Post. Andy went from persona nobody to a first-name basis with just about everybody in the Israeli government. The Rabbis sat up and took notice. Hebrew scholars sat up and took notice. Geologists sat up and took notice. Scientists took notice.....and scratched their head.
The Rabbis began to show Andy their discoveries in the Torah. Once it became clear that Asher's Oil was petroleum and not olive, it cast some translations of the Hebrew text into a whole new light.
"And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be."
"Mr. SoRelle, whether you realize it or not, you are the fulfillment of Scripture. You've found oil at the foot of Asher. Your drilling rig is 'iron and brass.' But, here's the best part. In I Chronicles 7:30-39 are the names of the 43 children of Asher. Each of their names is a prophecy -- a promise from God. Each of their names has a mathematical value. Put the translation from Hebrew of each of the names together in succession as they are recorded in Scripture and it comes out like this: "A foreign association shall come together and shall sink a shaft in Asher, using a cutting tool for cutting hard formations; and will go through a mountain or a high place; and liquid pitch will come forth as a man vomiting. And Asher will be able to lend to his brothers, and Israel will become preeminent amongst nations."
Get this, though! Put the mathematical value of each of the names of the children of Asher together and you have.......20,328! The depth at which Andy found oil. Oh...guess I forgot something. Every Hebrew letter has a mathematical value. It is like the ancient Greek language. Put the letters of the names together, add their numerical values together, and you get 20,328.
But there's more. Extract out some of the individual names with their corresponding mathematical value, and you get the exact weight and grade of the oil that came forth.
So, how did all that fit? Andy definitely had a foreign (American) association. They sank a shaft in Asher using a cutting tool for cutting hard formations (a drill bit used in digging for oil). They went through a mountain. The mountain was hidden because of geologic shifts, but they drilled through a volcanic mountain. Liquid pitch -- oil -- came forth as a man vomiting.
The rest of it.....well, it still remains to be completed. The Intifada interrupted things, and despite his best efforts to raise the money necessary to sink a producing well, Andy ran out of funds. Age and ill health caught up with him in the years that followed, so Andy SoRelle III -- his son -- has picked up the reigns.
One more thing: Andrew "Andy" SoRelle's name is Hebrew is.....tum de tum tum.....Asher! 'Course he didn't know that until the Rabbis told him.
It is a promise yet to be fulfilled. Andy once told me that if he could sink 50 oil wells per year in the region over a 20-year span, they wouldn't come close to extracting all the oil available.
You have to have a vision in order to achieve what everyone says is impossible. Geologists for years had said that Israel either had no oil whatever, or only oil in trace amounts not worth extracting. Their instruments and their scientific studies backed them up with their claims. There were no natural oil formations when you take in the geology and geography of the place. It took a nut case from Houston, Texas -- at least that's what a lot of folks called him -- to demonstrate to them that if the Bible says so, IT IS SO !!
Hope you enjoyed the Coffee Break. Have the Best Day of Your Life today, Folks. Blessings on you.
--Regner
Regner A. Capener
EKKLESIA HOUSE
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
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