Pelican's belly-can

The Bible picture of "rivers of living water flowing" out of the Believer is really talking about God the Holy Spirit. The rivers of water is a symbol; an emblem of the Holy Spirit.

“The Bible is filled with figures of speech,” explains Jordan. “When we say we take the Bible literally we don’t take it woodenly; we understand that there are figures of speech in the scripture that we recognize, we understand, we talk that way.”

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In Hosea 12:10, Hosea testifies, “I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.”

That word similitude, or simile, is a comparison that uses like or as. It’s a description of something that says, “If you understand this, well, this works just like that works. This is as that is.”

If you have a comparison that does not use like or as it’s a metaphor. A metaphor is where one object stands for another.

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An illustration is in Psalm 102: 6-7: “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.  I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”

What’s he saying? In the end of verse he spells it out. What the psalmist is doing is describing his loneliness and isolation.

“If you know anything about a pelican or an owl or a sparrow you know that they are isolated kinds of birds,” says Jordan. “A pelican is a coastal bird that has that big pouch under its beak and it goes out and catches fish, eats them and then regurgitates the fish into that undercarriage to feed its young with it.

“Now if you can imagine what that would do to a pelican in the hot sun with all that regurgitated fish in its pouch, you probably don’t want to be around a pelican that much.

“You ever been around a buzzard? When I was young down in Alabama, I used to turkey hunt and the first time I ever shot a turkey, I blew the thing out of the air and went over to get it and I said, ‘Man, there’s something dead over here.’ Well, when I got up to it, it was a buzzard.

“The point is I could smell that bird before I could see it because of what it would eat. Well, a pelican is sort of that way. Hosea was saying, ‘I’m lonely and I’m like those birds are in my loneliness.' ”

(Editor’s Note: To be continued . . . )