Recently the speaker was reading a book about Christians sharing how they experienced God through their struggles; they shared their struggles and how their faith helped them to cope. He noticed a commonality: sometimes they described their situation as if they were stuck in a dark pit; they feel all alone and that they can’t crawl out; they’re at rock bottom.

The speaker thinks this experience is not exclusive to mental illness. Sometimes people struggling with perhaps grief, or a very grave physical illness, or a significant life change/disappointment might feel like they’re in a pit.

This sermon will share on a Bible character who found himself in a pit, left alone to die. He’s not Joseph lol. He’s Jeremiah.

It seems like all was lost and he could only wait to die. He could only rely on his faith. And God did not perform any great miracle to save him. But there was a man who cared for and saved him out of the pit. His name is Ebed-Melech.

Some lessons from this story will be drawn, from two perspectives:
(1) From Jeremiah’s POV; a Christian stuck in a pit
(2) From Ebed-Melech’s POV: a bro/sis in Christ who sees someone in need and steps up to help him/her

Jer 38:1-6
Some brief context of this passage: this was the reign of the final king or Judah. King Zedekiah decided to rebel against the Babylonian kingdom. So Jeremiah the prophet spoke the words of God. God told the people to run away and join the people of Babylon “don’t fight! Run away!” If you’re the princes of Judah here, how would you feel? On one hand you want to fight the Babylonian army, on the other hand, there’s this man telling them to run away and join them. This is why the princes were very displeased with Jeremiah, and plotted to end his life by throwing him into a pit/dungeon and leaving him there to die.

Dungeon in English makes it seem like a prison. But it actually means a pit or hole. It might’ve been used to store water in the past but maybe the water dried up so it had no use. So it was doubled up to be used as a prison of sorts since a gate or key wasn’t needed.

“So Jeremiah sank in the mire.”
It would’ve been a struggle for him to stay afloat literally.

What would Jeremiah have felt in the pit? What did he do to survive/cope with this experience?

This is not recorded in the Bible but the speaker found a parallel in Psalms; it’s about a psalmist describing his situation as if he’s in a pit sinking in mire. That psalm was a prayer to God. Perhaps the only thing Jeremiah could do was to pray to God.

The speaker would like to take this opportunity to examine the psalm of the man in the pit sinking in the mire, and how we can gain inspiration from this prayer when we feel we’re in a low point in our lives. Because prayer can have a very powerful therapeutic or restorative effect on us - both mentally and spiritually.

Psa 69:1-4
This is a psalm/prayer of David. Let’s see what we can learn from this. We see David crying out to God. He’s so tired from crying out his throat is dry. The opening of his prayer is a very emotional one. Notice the phrases are all very short. This depicts a man overdosed with very negative emotions like helplessness and hopelessness. This reflects us when we turn to God in a very difficult time, immense trouble or grievance. We feel very negative, we just want to cry out to God “Why why??”

The speaker thinks there’s nothing wrong with this, even when our thoughts are very disorganised and we don’t know how to pray. Because we don’t need to pray in a very eloquent or structured manner. When we pray, God knows our hearts and thoughts; He knows what’s in our hearts even before we pray. In fact, God invites us to pray in our weakness.

Rom 8:26
“Cp”
Sometimes we’re so weak, we don’t know what to pray! But the Spirit Himself will help us and will pray with us. But that’s only if we take the first step to seek the Lord in prayer. If we don’t even pray, how can the Spirit pray with us?

Is that the end of prayer? We cry out to God for 1-2min and then amen. The speaker feels a prayer that ends abruptly doesn’t have its effect on us.

Psa 69:13-18
If we continue to pray amidst our emotions, something will change. From these verses, we can tell that David starts to become more calm. The language he uses becomes more structured and fluent. From this we see that prolonged prayer has the effect of calming ourselves down. We become more calm and stable after we’ve passed through the emotional stage when we were very unstable.

Some people describe very intense negative emotions like waves. When we’re hit, we feel overdosed by them; like we can’t take it. But if we’re able to ride through several waves, the ocean becomes more calm. We regain control of our emotions and thoughts slowly. Prolonged prayer is one way to ride through it.

David’s prayer also starts to be more grounded in the truth and displays faith. He’s reminded that God is sovereign. He remembers that God is the one who decides whether to extend His mercy to us; when is the acceptable time to help us. That comes to David’s mind as he prays and processes his thoughts.

We also see he uses more “Your” and “You”. At the beginning, he uses more “I”, “I’m feeling this and that”. Then later it becomes more “You are this and that”. The psalmist looks away from his predicament and towards God. This is a biblical way of managing stress and emotions.

Heb 12:1-3 is a familiar passage that reminds us to turn our eyes towards Jesus (v2). The more we fix our eyes on Him, the more we mee able to put down our burdens and negativity that weighs us down. The more we remind ourselves of who He is. The more we’re reminded of what Jesus went through because He loves me. How Jesus can do even the impossible. This helps us to feel less weary and discouraged in our souls.

Psa 69:29-33
The speaker likes the use of the word ‘prisoners’ in v33 (reference to
We see the amount of hope in God in the concluding verses. Something must’ve happened as he continued in his prolonged prayer. From a man who in v2 was sinking in the mire to v29 where he’s set up on high. Whose heart is set on high in v32. That’s very amazing. That’s the power of prayer we can all tap on today.

Of course prayer is not the only way we can use to cope through such situations. But prayer is a God given biblical way we can use to cope when we felt we’ve tried everything and nothing else can be done. We may have the misconception that we must be faithful then we can pray in this manner. But the speaker thinks about it in the opposite manner: we don’t need a lot of faith to pray. Because prayer has the reverse effect to support us in our weakness. As we pray, the Holy Spirit can empower us.

2 Tim 1:7
This verse has encouraged the speaker when he was feeling low. “God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but one of
When we’re weak or strengthless physically or mentally, God can give us the power. When we feel faithless or feel we lack love for god, for can fill us with power.

Control over things like our emotions or thoughts. The spirit of God can empower us to have control over these things, even when we feel we lack them in difficult moments.

When we feel we’re in a low point in our lives; in a pit, remember we have a very powerful coping tool - deep and prolonged prayer. You can be as honest and emotional in your prayer to God as you want. Because He cares for each and everyone of you. And more so when we are weak and faithless. When we turn to Him in prayer, when we show we need His help, He will all the more help us.

A testimony by Bro William Ko:
He shared his experience in a very deep and dark pit. This pit was his contraction of meningitis. He suffered a lot of pain and agony. This expended wws quite recent. When he was an adult, there was a sudden onset of meningitis. Besides that He also experienced maltreatment in the hospital because it was understaffed. The facilities were very bad. The junior doctor admonished to Him have him the wrong dosage. Tragic right? You go hospital and end up worse.

He felt like he was in an abyss. He was in New York, Flushing. His family in Taiwan. He was strengthless physically and mentally. There was only one thing he could do - praying to God whenever he was able to. How did God reply? God was silent. God didn’t snap His fingers and make him well. Even so, bro William held on to his faith. He shared that it was actually in God’s good timing that he had meningitis. Not long before he contrasted it he had attended an adult theological. Being close to God helped boost his faith before he went down into the pit. Coincidentally, a sister shared how she suffered a serious illness and how he made it through. In hindsight, the brother felt God’s timing was really amazing. His faith and trust in God and prayers helped to sustain his spiritual life through this illness.

Another thing that helped him make it through this difficult time was the brothers and sisters in church who visited him almost everyday. Sometimes they’ll come after work or school and sit silently in the room. What could they really do? Nothing. But they could pray show concern give support to him. So even though God seemed silent, he felt that the constant concern and prayers of the brothers and sisters was god’s response to his prayers. He described them to be spiritual antibiotics that helped to sustain his spiritual life. Because he was taking lots of physical antibiotics to treat his meningitis.

This testimony fits in nice as we move on to Ebed-Melech who helped Jeremiah out of the pit.

Jer 38:7-13
An outsider, an Ethiopian, not even a Jew, Ebed-Melech, showed concern. Wanted to save him. And actually saved him. He leaves a good model to learn from. When we observe brothers and sisters stuck in a pit, how can we be an Ebed-Melech to this brother or sister?

Three points:

1. Take the initiative
2. Provide appropriate help

3. Put our trust in God

4. Take the initiative
   Ebed-Melech took the initiative because there was no one else who saved Jeremiah. It wasn’t easy to do because it was going against the princes who commanded this. Don’t forget he’s an outsider; just a eunuch. Who was he to go against authority? Ebed-Melech must’ve had a lot of courage and love to take the initiative.

Sometimes it’s not easy for us too. Before we help someone, there’s a lot of uncertainty and apprehension. “I don’t know whether I can really help this person. I don’t know if I have the ability to cope because now I take on his burden. What if I fail? He’ll blame me. Becomes my fault! Maybe let someone else do uh.” But we have to take the first step. 1 John says that if we love God, we show our love to God by loving our brothers and sisters.

If one day we come upon a brother or sister who’s in a pit, maybe God has given us a test: if you love Me, go love him/her. We look around. There’s nobody else willing to help him/her. This test is for me. Take the initiative.

1. Offer appropriate help to the person
   The Bible describes how Ebed-Melech interestingly saved Jeremiah from the pit. He was very considerate. He knew Jeremiah was strengthless and couldn’t pull himself up. So he designed a harness to pull Jeremiah out.

This is one consideration for us too when we want to help another. Perhaps think about feasible, workable solutions to meet the needs of the person.

If the person lacks strength or energy, we may need to do certain things for him/her. If a person lacks knowledge, we may have to provide advice/wisdom. If a person lacks self control, we may need to provide supervision. “Hey how’re you doing? Remember last week we talked about this syeonwe fan tske. Are you doing it?” If a person lacks companions, we may have to provide support through companionship.

These are different ways.

Another way to provide appropriate help is to make sure you have other people to help us too.

Did Ebed-Melech lift Jeremiah out of the pit ok his own? No. He had 30 men to help him.

Another thing to consider: do we need help from brothers and sisters? Maybe they can help alleviate the physical or mental Biden we have when taking fare of brothers and sisters?

Maybe we can get help to formulate ideas and brainstorm how to best help a person

Sometimes we may need to enlist the help of the person’s family members. Because they can provide more timely and holistic care in the person’s life compared to us.

Sometimes we need others for prayer support. Not only to pray for the person going through the difficult time but also to pray for the caregiver. Sometimes it can be difficult and not easy.

These are several ways we can help others caring for others.

One more sub-point on how we can offer appropriate care is to tell the person what you’re doing to help him/her.

Ebed-Melech didn’t force Jeremiah out of the pit. He told him what he was going to do. “Can you cooperate with me? This is what I’m going to do.” He said ‘please’.

Sometimes we shouldn’t assume the person knows we’re helping him/her. It can lead to misunderstandings. Some people may misinterpret others’ intentions when they don’t know where they’re coming from. “You’re saying I cannot help myself?!” Communication can help such misunderstandings.

1. Put our trust in God
   Jer 39:15-18
   God told Ebed-Melech that He would reward him by saving his life. This is also something important to consider: always put our trust in God when helping somebody. Turn to God for guidance and support. But also entrust the outcome of our efforts to God. If our help is successful, we give praise and glory to God. If our help is unsuccessful, let’s entrust the outcome into God’s hand. We can only do what we can do. We can’t control a person’s thoughts and emotions, lives and future. It’s in God’s hands. So let’s entrust to God.

In conclusion, whenever we find ourselves in a dark and lonely pit in life, let’s remember to turn to God in prolonged prayers because He can lift our prayers. If we see a brother or sister in the pit, may the love of God compel us to help they brother or sister in need.