DAD'S RAMBLINGS -- LIFE IN THE PITS

DAD'S RAMBLINGS – LIFE IN THE PITS

"And while the crowds were thickly gathered together, He began to say, 'This is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.' " (Luke 11:29)

The story of Jonah is the story of Resurrection. In the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament, you can see in it a prophetic picture of what happened to the Lord Jesus. Remember that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish. That was picture of death. Especially graphic is the prayer of Jonah while he was in the belly of the fish.

" 'I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, and He answered me; Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice. For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. Then I said, "I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple." The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; the deep closed around me; … I went down to the moorings (or foundations) of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God.' ….So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." (Jonah 2:2-6, 10).

In Jonah's prayer, you hear the agony of death – being in the belly of Sheol, in the bottom of the earth, under the mountains; or into the depths of the ocean under the billows of waves, the waters closing around him. In that condition, Jonah felt abandoned – cast out of God's sight. Like being in prison with the bars closing behind him. But even in his despair, Jonah looked forward to being delivered from this place of death. We hear this in his prayer, "I will again look toward Your holy temple…..You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God" (vss. 4, 6b). You've heard it said that life is not a bowl of cherries – its the pits. Jonah was in the pit of the fish, but that was not the end of the story.

So when Jesus used Jonah as a picture of His own death – His going into the pit, into Sheol, into the belly of the earth – His view was beyond death to His own resurrection, of being brought out of the pit to again see God's holy temple.

We have the same hope. Even though we may go down into the pit – the grave – we have the hope of Resurrection, of life after death. And even in life's challenges when we are in the pits, we can know that God will bring us out of the pit to victory.

Love, Dad