Out of the Pit Part 2
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1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the Lord.
The pit is a place of despair.
The pit is a place of unbelief.
The pit is a place of death.
The pit is a place that every Christian sooner or later finds themselves in.
But it is not a place that you can stay for long. It will destroy you.
It is a horrible place.
Some of us have been in the pit so long that we are kind of used to it.
It’s like it’s our destiny to be in the pit.
What got you there?
Maybe it was a health problem.
Maybe it was (and maybe still is) a money problem.
Maybe it was the death of a loved one...gone too soon.
There are many different reasons that people go into the pit of despair.
Maybe people around you don’t recognize that you are there.
You take pains to hide it.
You put on a happy face.
You are brave in front of them...but inside you are dying.
If you could, you would spend all of your time in bed...but you have others that depend upon you, so you soldier on.
You come to church, but it doesn’t mean much anymore.
You go through the motions.
You sing the songs.
You listen to the sermon...or you try to...trying not to nod off.
You give when it’s time to give.
You take communion...but your heart is not in it.
And you know it.
Am I describing anyone here?
I have been there. I know how it is.
(Personal experience here)
Have you ever been stuck in the mud? If you have driven for very long at all, you have experienced this...probably many times.
How do you get out of the mud?
Do you spin your wheels faster?
Does that help?
No! It makes it worse! You just get deeper in the mud!
The fact is, that if you are very deep in the mud, you can’t get out on your own.
You need an external source of help, don’t you?
Whether it is a tow truck or your friend with a chain, you need to be pulled out.
The good news is that you don’t have to stay in the pit.
You are not destined for the pit.
You are destined for glory!
There is indeed a way out of the pit...
His name is Jesus!
I am here again this week, because He won’t let me let go of this thought.
I believe that is because He won’t let you go.
He’s going to keep calling out to you.
Deep calls unto deep.
Don’t resist Him.
Look at our text again.
Verse 2 - “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction...”
Why, because of verse 1...”He heard my cry”
Friend, are you crying out to Him daily...even hourly for rescue from that place?
I mentioned last wee, that “waited patiently” means “I waited and I waited”.
Waited here means “to twist together.” He was actually saying that he twisted Himself together with His God. It is a very active thing.
Pursuing God is never passive. It is always active.
It is urgent.
I heard a description of it last week. It is like the pursuit that a parent would have of a child when they lost the child.
Nothing casual about that, right? Can you imagine having lost your child in a store, would you not move heaven and earth to find that child?
You wouldn’t go home until he is found!
That’s what it means to wait upon God. That’s what it means to cry out to Him.
Instead, sometimes we give half-hearted gestures of pursuit.
We spend our 5 or 10 or 15 minutes in the morning of obligatory prayer and Bible reading, but our hearts are not in it.
I wonder what our praise songs and hymns would be like if we really sang them the way we feel.
“I surrender some...I surrender some!”
“Trust and Obey...Is there any other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey?”
“I’m not really desperate for you!” “I can make it fine without you!”
No, we must be REALLY desperate for him!
“But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.
‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
“The greatest hindrance to drawing near to God is our satisfaction without Him.”
Idleman, Shane. I Almost Quit
Are you so used to being in the pit without him that you’ve stopped seeking Him. You drown yourself in the things of this world to cover up the gnawing feeling of emptiness that is in your very soul.
Do you miss Him? Do you remember what it was like to taste and see Him?
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Reach out to Him today friend! He is nearer you than you can possibly imagine.
Listen to the words of Psalm 139.
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
He knows your path. He sees you. He understands your thoughts. He knows the words in your mouth before you ever speak them.
He is intimately acquainted with all of your ways.
He may have enclosed you, but it is actually for your protection.
He has laid His hand of blessing upon you. He wants to bless you.
Let’s read on.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”
Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.
You can’t get away from God. He is ever with you. There is no place to go.
No place to flee. He is ever near you.
Yes, the darkness may have enclosed you.
You may not be able to see your way out.
But darkness and light are alike to Him.
It is not dark with Him.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
The word is near you. He is near you.
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,
He will NEVER LEAVE YOU. NEVER FORSAKE YOU!
If you stay in the pit after today, it will be because you choose to be there. You don’t have to remain there. Only pride will keep you there.
Now, I want to talk to those who may not be in a pit of despair, but you are in a “pit-like” situation. You have a desperate situation staring you in the face. You haven’t given in to despair. You haven’t quit. You haven’t stopped trusting. But you are facing things.
The enemy has raised His ugly face at you. You haven’t flinched, but things look pretty dark.
I have a scripture for you today!
Who is among you that fears the Lord,
That obeys the voice of His servant,
That walks in darkness and has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
The same God that has delivered you out of the pit in the past, will keep you out today!
Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were not saved from the fiery furnace, they were saved through it.
Daniel was not saved from the lion’s den, he was saved in the lion’s den.
He will be with you, friend. He will never leave you, nor forsake you either.
Be faithful!
Remember FROG
Fully Rely On God!
God gives to his people the propensity to cling. Look at the sweet pea that grows in your garden. Perhaps it has fallen down on the gravel walk. Lift it up against the laurel or the trellis, or put a stick near it, and it catches hold directly, because there are little hooks ready prepared with which it grasps anything which comes in its way: It was meant to grow upwards and so it is provided with tendrils. Every child of God has his tendrils about him—thoughts, and desires, and hopes with which he hooks on to Christ and the promise. Though this is a very simple sort of faith, it is a very complete and effectual form of it, and, in fact, it is the heart of all faith, and that to which we are often driven when we are in deep trouble, or when our mind is somewhat muddled by our being sickly or depressed in spirit. We can cling when we can do nothing else, and that is the very soul of faith.
Charles Spurgeon, 300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon, ed. Elliot Ritzema and Lynnea Smoyer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017).
If none of this applies to you, then praise God! I mean, really praise God!
If you aren’t in a pit.
If you aren’t in a pit-like situation, be thankful!
You’ve probably faced it before. You’ll probably face it again.
Use this time to prepare for the next test.
The time to prepare for difficult times, is in the good times.
Soak in the word of God.
Spend much time in prayer.
Witness to others when you can.
Be fruitful!
For everyone...
The pit has it’s uses. God doesn’t want us to be in a place of despair...Don’t get me wrong.
But even Paul said that there was a place where he despaired even of life.
There are times and seasons where we face the pit...We are tempted to despair.
Don’t do it! Don’t despair!
Keep looking up!
Listen to these very familiar words...
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
