That Horrible Pit!

Ladies and Gentlemen, please read intently this sincere message of warning. I will try not to make this too long. Surely, everyone should agree that we are living in the darkest time of social civilization. Sin and degradation, which at one time was marked and shamed, is now a normal everyday occurrence that society and many churches have turned a blind eye to.

Folks, playtime with the devil is over. We must get to Jesus. It is time to get out of that horrible pit. In Psalm 40, (1) David said, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. (2) He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.”

A person in sin must recognize their lost condition and cry to the Lord for forgiveness and mercy. That pit is always down and deep. When Jesus inclines to your cry, he will bring you up. Satan will only try to drag you further down. Sometimes you will try on your own to climb out, but you will always inevitably backslide on the miry clay. Your feet must be on the rock, not on the clay of the pit. Jesus, we all know, is that solid rock.

The pit, not many people realize, is a pit stop to hell. That is where Satan wants to drag your soul down to and that is where every pit resident is going to unless God extends mercy and brings you up out of it. Yes, there are some seasonal pleasures in the pit. Sometimes fame and fortune. But remember Jesus said in Mark 8:36-37, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Let’s look at the story found in Matthew 8:28-32. Two men possessed with devils came out of the tombs. They were so devilish, fierce, and fiendish, that no one would pass their way. No one wanted anything to do with them. They saw Jesus and felt that he was about to cast them out. The devils asked Jesus if he was going to torment them before the time. Even the devils know that a time of reckoning is coming, Judgment Day!

The devils feared Jesus wanting to have nothing to do with him. They don’t contend against Jesus; they contend against our flesh. We must always rely on Jesus and not our flesh.

The devils, again, knowing that Jesus was going to cast them out, wanted a host for them to dwell in. They saw the swine and begged Jesus to let them enter the swine. Jesus said go and they entered the swine and ran the swine violently down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters. Let’s not forget that John 10:10 says, The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. That thief, the devil, tried destroying those two men’s lives until Jesus set them free. Then the devil turned on the swine and killed them.

Did you know that swine can swim? Yet, the devil drowned them regardless of being able to swim. Perhaps you may think that you don’t need Jesus to free you from your bondage. Perhaps you think you can go toe to toe with the enemy. I assure you that you can’t! Not without Christ in your life.

Jesus has the power to resist the devil. He did it in the wilderness, he did it in the Garden of Gethsemane and he can do it in your life. Jesus holds the power over the enemy. Speaking of the Garden, John 18:3-6 says, Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. (4) Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? (5) They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. (6) As soon as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.

I John 4:4 lets us know that greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

When we have Christ in our life as our risen savior the power to resist the devil and live right is within us. Those devils (Judas, etc.) that came against Jesus in the Garden had no power whatsoever and it showed when they fell backward. Jesus then surrendered himself to continue his journey to the cross so that you and I could be saved from our sins. Saved from the horrible pit that is a pit stop to hell.

The devil will try all sorts of ornamentation in the pit to disguise what it is. Ornaments like fame, fortune, material things, girlfriends, boyfriends, pleasures, etc. But just like ornaments on a Christmas tree, they eventually come down. In that horrible pit of sin, you will go down deeper than you’d ever thought you would go and stay longer than you ever felt you would.

Jesus is obligated but one time to extend a hand to lift you out of that pit. After that, obligation becomes mercy. Mercy that we have no idea how long it will be offered before it is permanently withdrawn.

While it is called today, let Jesus pull you up out of that horrible pit.