The Bottomless Pit

The other day, I was called upon to preach a funeral; this has often been among my duties as a pastor of a small flock.  All that attend these events are struck by and grapple with the grief, gravity, and stark reality of death.  In these times of great sorrow, my heart aches for those who have no Jesus. If you have no blessed hope—which is eternal life in Christ Jesus; to enter into this hope, an allegiance to Christ and God’s Word is required—then what do you have?  What will many have in their day of trouble, when the doctor says you have two weeks to live?  All of man’s bold bravado and nonchalance will surely evaporate, and despair and fear will overrun all the “positive thoughts” and empty platitudes the entire world can muster.  Did I say, “the entire world can muster?” But, what a marvel it is to be a child of God through the born-again experience that destroys the dread and fear of death—swallowing it with one single gulp! 

All will meet the grim reaper, and many most unexpectedly.  Ecclesiastes 8:8:

There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

NO DISCHARGE. 

Jesus calls the way of escape “born again.”  John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Being born a second time, this time of the Spirit of God, not only decimates the fear of death, but also opens up the marvelous vista of service to the Cross of Christ.  Here, the child of God’s life is filled with glorious, eternal purpose and promise.  Here, we learn the holy secret of giving instead of constantly looking to get.  Here, we learn to come before God with praise and thanksgiving instead of consistently coming before God with complaints and petitions laden with anxiety—always for me and mine.  Here, as children of God, we strive to cast off this “carnal Christianity” and put on the Christ of service—the ministry of reconciliation.  Truly, it all starts with born-again. 

Have you been born again?  Have you repented to God of your sins, believing on the precious blood of Jesus Christ to wash those sins and their shame away?  Today will be your day of salvation and today, all Satan’s bondages will be broken and thoroughly vanquished if you follow me in this simple prompt.  In just minutes, everything—and I mean everything—changes.  The greatest decision in your entire life awaits.  Follow me now: Click onto “Further with Jesus”  for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. Do it right now.  We will wait for you here.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Isaiah 14:15:

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

GOD SAID, Revelation 9:1-12:

1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

GOD SAID, Revelation 20:1-3:

1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

MAN SAID: I have important things to do and I don’t have time for—nor need—my life to be encumbered by Biblical foolishness!  I’m important! I’m valuable! I love myself!

Now THE RECORD: Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 971 that will once again certify the beautiful inerrancy of God’s Holy Bible.  All of these powerful features are archived here in text and streaming audio for your edification and as ammunition in the battle for the souls of men.  Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. 

Take advantage of four highly-beneficial GodSaidManSaid features:

1. You have questions?  God has answers.  Whatever your question, type a keyword into the search bar (top right) and watch the screen populate with related information—from Adam and Eve to quantum physics.

2. Use the Tell-A-Friend feature above to send a message to someone you love.  It is so quick and easy!

3. Imagine—you can download nearly 400 hours of GodSaidManSaid features to your electronic device!  Listen to one every day. 

4. Sign up for the GodSaidManSaid weekly broadcast and fresh bread will be delivered to you, God willing, every Thursday eve. 

Thank you for coming.  Grace, mercy, and truth be multiplied unto you. 

Very often, the Bible puts forth a strange grouping of words which will always have the same effect on students of the beautiful Book—they stop to ponder. GodSaidManSaid has noted these marvelous truths many times and offered them to the Sola Scriptura (Scriptures alone) saints as the pearls of great price that they are.  In review, several follow:

💚 Strange Groupings of Words:

John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

When you see strange groupings of words in the Scriptures, it is time to stop and consider.  When Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again,” Nicodemus was perplexed by this strange grouping of words, so he stopped Jesus to question Him about them. 

Nicodemus was highly skilled in Biblical text but didn’t understand the miracle of “born-again” because this interaction was the first time this mystery was revealed to the world.  Consider Ephesians 2:1:

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins:

All of us were sons and daughters of Adam and Eve; because of the fall in the Garden of Eden, all of their children were spiritually stillborn.  We needed to be born a second time, this time of the Spirit of God. 

The born-again understand these marvelous words to mean a literal new birth that begins when one repents of his sins—abandons them—and believes upon the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.  How real is it?  A few highlights:

✟  It comes with a new Father;
✟  It comes with a birth date and an official birth certificate recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
✟  A new name;
✟  A new glorious purpose; and
✟  A new promise of eternal life. 

Born-again: Truly a strange grouping of words. 

💚 Strange Groupings of Words:

 Job 33:14-16:

14 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,

God created your brain and tasked it to do something very necessary when you sleep.  The following paragraphs are from the feature “Wake-Up Call” found in the April 2015 issue of Discover magazine:

Sleep doesn’t just allow the body to focus on rebalancing hormone levels and hunting down pathogens.  It also enables the brain to do some crucial housecleaning—cognitive and otherwise.  Many experiments have shown that when people or animals learn a skill, they perform it better after a good sleep.  Some of this memory consolidation may occur through dreaming.

One short paragraph from Dr. Leaf’s book, Switch on Your Brain, follows:

You are a thinking being.  You think all day long, and at night as you sleep, you sort out your thinking.  As you think, you choose, and as you choose, you cause genetic expression to happen in your brain.  This means you make proteins, and these proteins form your thoughts.  Thoughts are real, physical things that occupy mental real estate. [End of quote]

God said something important happens when you sleep, and today’s science once again confirms the inerrancy of Holy Writ.

Job 33:14-16:

14 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.

15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

16 Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,

💚 Strange Groupings of Words:

How did a bunch of “mere men,” as the skeptics claim, write such marvelous scientific insights thousands of years before today’s science began to understand and, much of the time, inadvertently confirm?  The simple answer is that the Scriptures were authored by the God of all knowing and penned to paper by His holy men. 

In the strange and peculiar groupings of words department, consider Job 38:30:

The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

Also, Psalm 24:1-2:

1 A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD''S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.

The following sentences are from the GodSaidManSaid feature “Geologists Floored by Water Rock:”

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists on Wednesday (c. 2014) said they had found an elusive mineral pointing to the existence of a vast reservoir deep in Earth’s mantle, 400-600 kilometers (250-375 miles) beneath our feet. 

It may hold as much water as all the planet’s oceans combined, they believe. 

The evidence comes from a water-loving mineral called ringwoodite that came from the so-called transition zone sandwiched between the upper and lower layers of Earth’s mantle, they said. 

“This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth in this area,” said Graham Pearson of Canada’s University of Alberta, who led the research. 

“That particular zone in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world’s oceans put together.” 

Ringwoodite is named after Australian geologist Ted Ringwood, who theorized that a special mineral was bound to be created in the transition zone because of the ultra-high pressures and temperatures there. 

A piece of this mineral has been a long-sought goal.  It would resolve a long-running debate about whether the poorly-understood transition zone is bone-dry or water-rich.

Hans Keppler, a geologist at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, cautioned against extrapolating the size of the subterranean water find from a single sample of ringwoodite. 

And he also said the water was likely to be locked up in specific rocks, in a molecular form called hydroxyl. 

“In some ways, it is an ocean in Earth’s interior, as visualized by Jules Verne…although not in the form of liquid water,” Keppler said in a commentary also published by Nature.

Keppler speaks of water that is locked up in specific rocks—even as Job, arguably the oldest book of the Bible, records in chapter 38:30:

30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

💚 Strange Groupings of Words:

Proverbs 9:1-6:

1 Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars:

2 She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table.

3 She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city,

4 Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him,

5 Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.

6 Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.

“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars:” These words were penned approximately 3,000 years ago—a strange and peculiar grouping of words. Today’s neuroscience is just beginning to understand its meaning.  Renowned neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf, in her new book The Gift in You, writes concerning the mystery of the seven pillars.  A few excerpts from Dr. Leaf’s book follow:

Scientifically, the brain is also built on Seven Pillars, which, when used properly, produce clear, intelligent, and wise thinking.  These seven main areas of the brain were revealed through imaging techniques that observe activity in people’s brains as they perform different tasks.

You perceive the world in the creative brilliance of your mind through seven types of thought. 

Dr. Leaf goes on to name the Seven Pillars:

💭  Intrapersonal Pillar;
💭  Interpersonal Pillar;
💭 Linguistic Pillar;
💭 Logical/Mathematical Pillar;
💭 Kinesthetic Pillar;
💭 Musical Pillar;
💭 Visual/Spatial Pillar. 

Your unique thinking pattern requires that you think by moving through the seven different pillars of the brain’s thought in a particular order, with a signature amount of bandwidth given to that function. 

When we start exploring the Seven Pillars of thought, an integral principle is that all seven of these pillars work together very, very intimately.  They don’t work separately, and they are all interconnected. [End of quotes]

When Matthew Maury’s confidence in the Holy Scriptures was questioned, he did not shrink from the criticism.  Matthew Maury holds the titles of “Father of Oceanography,” “Pathfinder of the Seas,” and “Father of Naval Meteorology.”  In the 1800s, he discovered paths in the sea, such as the 40-mile-wide, 2000-feet-deep Gulf Current, the Japanese Current, the California Current, and more.  Sea-crossing vessels cut up to 3 weeks off their time at sea.  Maury was inspired by Psalm 8:8 and Ecclesiastes 1:6.  To his critics, Matthew Maury replied:

I have been blamed by men of science, both in this country and in England, for quoting the Bible in confirmation of the doctrines of physical geography.  The Bible, they say, was not written for scientific purposes and is therefore of no authority in matters of science.  I beg pardon!  The Bible is authority for everything it touches… The Bible is true, and science is true… They are both true; and when your men of science, with vain and hasty conceit, announce the discovery of disagreement between them, rely upon it: the fault is not with the Witness or His records, but with the “worm” [sinful human] who essays [attempts] to interpret evidence which he does not understand.

💚 Strange Groupings of Words:

Several millenniums before geologists began to understand that the center of the earth was a molten (liquid) mass at an approximate temperature of 9,806°F—which is comparable to the surface of the sun—God describes hell and a place called the bottomless pit, and their final residence as the Lake of Fire.

According to geologists’ speculations, the middle of the earth is made up of a 760-mile diameter, solid iron core surrounded by a liquid core composed of a nickel-iron alloy.  They hypothesize that the solid iron core—which would melt at 2,800°F—doesn’t melt because of pressure.  No one has any direct measurement, but even if the innermost core was solid, surrounded by liquid metal, the strange grouping of words—"bottomless pit”—would still be very telling indeed.  If the earth’s core is totally liquid metal all the way through, then one who traveled down to the bottom—or center of the earth—would discover that the pit had no bottom.  On the other hand, if science’s speculations are correct and the earth has a solid iron core encompassed by liquid metal, then one traveling down to the center would be confronted by the solid mass of iron; then following the flow of the liquid, one would discover that the pit is still bottomless.  Isaiah 14:15 would then apply:

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. 

When the redeemed encounter a strange grouping of words in God’s beautiful Book, its time to stop and consider.  God’s Word is true and righteous altogether—every jot and every tittle—and it’s the place to build a life that will last forever. 

GOD SAID, Isaiah 14:15:

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

GOD SAID, Revelation 9:1-12:

1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

GOD SAID, Revelation 20:1-3:

1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

MAN SAID: I have important things to do and I don’t have time for—nor need—my life to be encumbered by Biblical foolishness!  I’m important! I’m valuable! I love myself!

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

GodSaidManSaid, “Seven Pillars and Strange and Peculiar Groupings of Words”

GodSaidManSaid, “Something’s Happening When You Sleep”

GodSaidManSaid, “The Spark of Life: A Strange Grouping of Words” 

• Go Further With Christ
• Email To a Friend
• Comments or Questions?