In a popular children’s book from the 1980s, 500 Questions and Answers About the Bible, author Neil Grant writes, “The story of the Exodus is more poetry than history. It shows God’s great plan working, but not the details of the historical events. We cannot say what caused the division of the Red Sea, nor explain the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire.”

Far from being poetry, when Israel is brought out of Egypt and across the Red Sea in Exodus 15, there’s a phenomena that takes place which is pointed to many times over in prophetic Scripture, and has everything to do with the underworld, the bottomless pit, Satan, demons, hell and the souls of lost dead people.

“Where Israel crosses the Red Sea is an opening that goes down into a place the Bible calls ‘the pit,’ ” explains my pastor, Richard Jordan. “Now, it very well could be the ‘bottomless pit’ from Revelation 9 where, during the tribulation period, an angel comes down and opens the door, letting out onto the earth demonic creatures who will inflict torture on people.

“At this time, men will want to die but can’t. Verse 6 says, ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ ”

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In Genesis 1 we’re told that “God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

“The deep” is a reference to the water that fills up the “container” of the universe after the judgment in the angelic realm. It consists of the water above and below the firmament where the stars and planetary systems are.

“In that water below the universe there are some bodies,” says Jordan. “And we talked about where demons come from (as a result of the angelic rebellion) and how some of their bodies are down there, held in chains of darkness, but some others are loose and they’re these disembodied spirits we call demons.”

While an angel is a spirit living inside a celestial body, an “unclean spirit,” meaning a demon or devil, is a disembodied spirit that doesn’t have a body to dwell in. That’s why they go and possess people.

A demon needs a living vehicle to function in, otherwise he’s just out loose with no means to relate either to the spirit world about him or to the physical world we live in.

Lucifer is not only the “prince of the power of the air,” but he’s the “prince of devils,” and the disembodied spirits are the foot soldiers in Satan’s army, working in and through lost people.

“Unsaved people have in their makeup the capacity to be in touch with these demons and that’s how Satan works through people,” confirms Jordan. “We call them demons, but the Bible calls them devils. That’s the English translation of the Greek word ‘demon.’ The Greeks used the word sometimes for good things and sometimes for bad things. You could have a demon of genius. You know, be a Socrates or Plato—they said they had demons. So, in the Greek language, the reason they translated it ‘devils’ is so you would know it’s a bad demon; we’re dealing with bad dudes here.”

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As we know, the 10 plagues against Egypt were aimed at the gods of Egypt. Israel was in satanic captivity and God literally destroyed all the gods the Egyptians trusted in, prompting them to agree, “Okay, best thing we can do now is let them hightail it out of here!”

In Exodus 15, Moses sings a song of redemption to the children on Israel, which includes the lines, “The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
[4] Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.
[5] The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.
[6] Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.
[7] And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.
[8] And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.”

Jordan explains, “Notice it says ‘the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.’ The idea here is when the Red Sea is parted, the ground that’s opened up there congeals and Israel goes across on dry land.

“But then when Pharaoh and his host come lickety-split out there to get them, God brings down the mountains of water in His wrath and kills Pharaoh and his horsemen and the bottom of the sea isn’t congealed any longer. They sink down into it. They go out into ‘the pit.’

“So while their bodies were destroyed and could be seen bobbing around up on the beach, their souls sank down through the Red Sea. You know the joke about how Pharaoh and his army had dandruff? They found their Head & Shoulders on the beach.

“In Ezekiel 29 and 31, Pharaoh is used by name as a picture of the Antichrist. And if you go to Rev. 6, where the Antichrist career is laid out for you under those first four seals, what are those first four seals? They’re horses, aren’t they? There’s a rider on different horses. And what happens to the Antichrist in his pursuit of Israel? Well, he’s destroyed and God ‘the man of war’ comes to defend his people, and if you go on down through Exodus 15, well, there’s the kingdom.

“When God formed the nation Israel and brought them out of Egypt, the battle that took place in delivering Israel from satanic captivity in Egypt is in the same place where there’s going to be this other battle in the last day.

“Just as He brings Israel out of Egypt to bring in His kingdom and reign in the earth, one day that’s going to be accomplished. So there’s a looping; there’s a parallel with what will go on out there.”

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In Psalm 66: 5-6, David writes, “Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.
[6] He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him.”

Jordan says, “You see how he says ‘he turned the sea into dry land’? God emphasizes that and repeats that in Scripture so you know there’s something special going on in that Red Sea where He makes it dry ground. He covers up the top of that pit so Israel doesn’t fall in and then He takes away that covering so Pharaoh and his host do fall in.”

In Isaiah 51:9 the plea is made by Israel to God, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”

“What they’re saying is, ‘Lord you’ve been dormant, you’ve left us alone; wake up and come to our aid—do what you did back there in the ancient days,’ ” explains Jordan. “Rahab is a locality in the land of Egypt. They cry, ‘We want you to do what you did way back there when you cut Rahab; when you wounded the dragon.’

“It’s, ‘Hey, Lord, come help us! We know you can do this. You’re the one who dried up the sea and the waters of the great deep and ‘hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over.’ You just took us right over that sucker before! Come deliver us again!”

Similarly, in Psalm 74, Asaph recounts the history of Israel by saying, “For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
[13] Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
[14] Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.”

Jordan says, “When (the Lord) brought Israel out of Egypt, he literally goes right over that stronghold of the Adversary—literally the place where that pit opens up—and He just walks right over them. And then He turns around and slays Pharaoh and his army and casts them down into that pit. And He wounds the head of the dragon. In other words, He was in a war there as ‘the man of war’ fighting against the dragon. The dragon, of course, is Satan.”

As Isaiah 27:1 reports, “In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”

All of these passages are Second Advent passages looking into the future at Christ’s return but using as doctrine things that happened in the Exodus across the Red Sea.

“God teaches Israel that way,” says Jordan. “He’ll do something and then He’ll say, ‘You see that—well this over here is going to be just like that back there.’ He multiplies the ministry of His Word by the similitude of the Prophets: ‘This thing is like that; I did it over here and I’m going to do it again over there.’

“Now when it talks about punishing leviathan, he’s the guy in Job 41 that everybody calls the whale, or the elephant, or the hippopotamus, or whatever they want to call him. (Evolutionist Believers) calls him a dinosaur.

“No, he’s not a dinosaur, he’s ‘leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.’ Who is the piercing serpent and the dragon in the Bible? That’s Satan. And it says he’s going to slay the dragon in the sea.

“There’s a fascinating thing when you study these demonic activities and the activities of Satan and his armies. They have an affinity for water and fire. And you’re seeing why the water is there. It’s almost as if, when they’re in the water, they’re able to hide and be concealed.

“Now, with leviathan in Job 41 and Revelation 12, what sea is he in? Well, he’s in the Red Sea in Exodus 15. He’s in the Red Sea in Isaiah 51:10.”

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Around the land of Palestine are literally passageways down into the heart of the earth into the underworld.

“Isaiah 13 and 34 present two other places in the land of Palestine where there are openings that go down into the underworld,” says Jordan. “Now, there a number of departments; a number of places in the underworld. There’s the bottomless pit. There’s the place where the angels are held in chains of darkness; the Greek word for that is Tartarus.

“There’s the place where the souls of people are—hell. So there are a number of different departments for the departed spirits. The Greek word ‘Hades’ and the Hebrew word ‘sheol’ simply mean the world of the departed. The underworld. The Bible talks about the ‘nether parts of the earth.’

“When you hear somebody say, ‘Well, he died and went to Hades,’ that doesn’t tell you where he went specifically; that just tells you generally he’s in the place where the departed dead go.

“Hell is the word used to describe the place where the souls of men go and they’re in torment. In Luke, the rich man dies and it says ‘in hell he lifted up his eyes.’ The same word ‘hell’ is used for where the angels are. And it’s the word that describes what’s down there in that torment.

“Upon Christ’s return at the Second Advent, just like the opening that goes down into the bottomless pit is located in the Red Sea—right south of the Dead Sea which is over in Palestine in the land of Israel—and just south of there in Bozrah and the land of Idumea, there is a shaft, a passageway that goes down into what we call hell—the place that was prepared for the devil and his angels. The opening that goes down into that is right south of the Dead Sea.

“Now, you understand when I say that to you, in the spirit world you’re not confined to what’s in the Carbon-14 material world, so that opening that goes down into the center of the earth into the confines of hell is filled up with earth and dirt right now, and all you see physically is the dirt, but it’s still there.”