A SENTENCE OF DEATH

About two years ago I made a decision to turn down a full time position in a church to pursue the ministry I believe the Lord has called me to. Today I have scriptural evidence to assure me that I made the right decision and am exactly where the Lord wants me. Behind me is an enemy intent on destroying me; on either side are un-climbable mountains; before is an impassable Red Sea: It is good to be in the perfect will of the Lord!

“For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9; emphasis mine).

Ultimately the Lord is the judge in our trial of faith, and in his mercy he condemns our human strength to death. We have the “sentence of death in ourselves” to keep us from placing hope in our impotence. The battle is the Lord’s and “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). The war we wage is spiritual; were you to drop a million atomic bombs on the devil it would not faze him.

Do you honestly think your “357 Magnum” could ever make a difference?

The Apostle Paul and those with him understood their sentence of death. Sentence here means an answer: "On asking myself whether I should come out safe from mortal peril, I answered, ‘I must die.” Paul asked the Lord in his trial, “What am I to do to get out of this?” The reply was, “You must die to any hope of carnal genius and natural ability.” This is the basis of true faith: an unconditional dependence upon the unseen hand of the Lord — an honest confession that if the Lord doesn't come and take things into his own hands, then we've had it!

Everyone has a breaking point.

Paul said he was pressed — weighted down— above measure. The test that came to the Apostle was “beyond” anything he had ever experienced: It was the “bale of hay that broke the back of the trailer.” He referred to it as trouble, which is the same as affliction in Acts 7:10, when it says that God delivered Joseph “out of all his afflictions.” Just as Josephs’ soul “entered into the iron” during the seemingly endless delay of his promise, Paul likewise “entered in.”

The end result is he “despaired even of life.” Despair means “to be utterly at loss, be utterly destitute of measures or resources, to renounce all hope. The root of this word means “to be without resources, to be in straits, to be left wanting, to be embarrassed, to be in doubt, not to know which way to turn. It is “to be at a loss with one's self, be in doubt and not to know how to decide or what to do: to be perplexed.” These are all qualifications of a miracle: If you can not relate to this, then you are not qualified.

Before there can be a resurrection there must be a death. “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10).

There is always more in resurrection than there is in birth —B.H. Clendennen.