It began with a strange nightmare. I dreamed that I was down in a pit, trying to get out. Now that I think about it, King David went through something similar.
Lord, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.
I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.
I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.
You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
(Psalm 88:1-7)
That same day, I felt uncomfortable. And I was burning with fever and it went as high as 39.6 degrees Celsius. It was a very unpleasant experience, I must say. For a moment I thought I would not live to see today. Sleeping or resting was a problem. But somehow I could relate how the scorching heat of my internal body with the reality of the fire of hell.
He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars —they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Rev 21:6-8)
(This will be something that will stay with me when I am tempted to sin.)
I prayed hard for God to deliver me from this suffering. (Still recovering from the fever)
And I am glad he answered my prayers.
In a dream, in a vision of the night,
when deep sleep falls on people
as they slumber in their beds,
he may speak in their ears
and terrify them with warnings,
to turn them from wrongdoing
and keep them from pride,
to preserve them from the pit,
their lives from perishing by the sword.
“Or someone may be chastened on a bed of pain
with constant distress in their bones,
so that their body finds food repulsive
and their soul loathes the choicest meal.
Their flesh wastes away to nothing,
and their bones, once hidden, now stick out.
They draw near to the pit,
and their life to the messengers of death.
Yet if there is an angel at their side,
a messenger, one out of a thousand,
sent to tell them how to be upright,
and he is gracious to that person and says to God,
‘Spare them from going down to the pit;
I have found a ransom for them —
let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;
let them be restored as in the days of their youth’ —
then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,
they will see God’s face and shout for joy;
he will restore them to full well-being.
(Job 33:15-26)
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