2 Cor. 1:8-14

Paul felt a need to let the Corinthians know that he had recently been in an extreme trial of some sort.  He didn’t want them to be ignorant of this, probably because of a charge some in Corinth were making against Paul that he had gone back on his word to come to see them (cf. 1:15ff).  Apparently this unspecified trial had been part of the reason Paul had not come.

Of this trial Paul says, “we had the sentence of death in ourselves.”  His life was in real danger and rescue was out of his own hands.  Have you ever been in such a situation?  Occasionally I take a corner a little too quickly for some in the car and one of the grandkids will holler, “we’re all gonna die!”  But for Paul it was no joke.  He apparently had a strong thought that death was near at hand.

As a young man I was leading a group of young people on a hike in the mountains east of San Diego.  It was a semi-arid place and a hot day.  We wandered around on some unmarked trails for a while when I realized we were seeing things we had seen before.  We were going in circles, running low on water, and in a fairly unfamiliar area.  For the first time in my young life the thought came to me that we could die.  After a brief prayer as a group the Lord helped us find our way back to the place where we had started. 

Over the years I have been encouraged in being with several Christian brothers and sisters who knew they were on their deathbed.  Various organs of the body were shutting down and they knew they had, at most, two or three days to live.  I have been amazed in several instances at they way these saints have shared last words with a variety of family members and friends, and wondered how I would face that situation of being under the sentence of death.

I have also been around folks feeling under the sentence of death who have lived their lives with little interest in God at all.  They seemed to live as if they would never die.  Then they found they had cancer or had a stroke or in some other way became aware of the fragile nature of their own lives.  In some cases this has brought them to seriously consider that moment after death.  Some have come to trust Jesus Christ as Savior, the very One who welcomed into His kingdom the thief on the cross just hours before he died.

Paul is very clear that he was not angry at God for his difficult affliction.  He understood the necessity of “death-sentence” situations in life.  It is at these times that a person is brought to the end of himself and trusts in God who raises the dead (v9).  If God delivers us from the death sentence there is a lot of thanks that He gets (v10-11).  Remember, the goal of affliction is to speak well of God. If He takes us through the death sentence there is still anticipation of the day of judgment, the day of the Lord Jesus (v14).

Like Paul we must endure affliction with a clear conscience, conducting ourselves in godliness, not by fleshly wisdom but by God’s grace (v12).  Death is inevitable; we all are under the sentence of death.  Does this cause you to trust in yourself?  Or are you strengthened to trust the Living God who raises the dead?