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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Dealing with a Death Sentence

Let's pray together and ask the Lord to bless us as we open his word.

Father in heaven, bless us as we spend a few moments in your word and we thank you.

All right, I don't know if this is gonna come up there.

But our text today, 1 Corinthians 1.9, is a poignant text.

We had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

Did not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

So every time we look at a text in the scriptures, some of us are just learning how to study the Bible and just, things are not going well here, Just learning how to study the Bible.

What I like to do when I look in the Bible at any text is just ask 3 basic questions.

What's the problem the text is talking about?

And is there a way to move from the problem to the solution?

So just based on that text, which should be up on screen soon.

We had the sentence of death in ourselves.

We have the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.

So how many would agree that probably having a death sentence is a problem?

So, and that death sentence is in ourselves.

And this is what Paul says that he's experiencing.

So the Apostle Paul, of course, wrote most of the New Testament.

And in this picture, you can see that he has very large letters of handwriting.

He had, some believe, an eye problem and could not see that well.

And what was the problem that he was having?

We do not want you to be ignorant brethren of our trouble which came to us in Asia That we were burdened beyond measure He could not measure it that word burden means is it's have a very heavy heavy weight could not be measured above strength so that we despaired even life.

So discouraged I don't even know if I want to keep living, says Paul.

Have you ever been in that situation where things are so intense you think, I don't know if I can go on, I can't even measure how much of a burden this is.

So Asia Minor is where he was in modern day Turkey, and some of us traveled there, not this last summer, but the summer before, and looked at many of these sites where Paul was ministering and where he experienced all kinds of pressure.

I had no rest in my spirit, For indeed when we came to Macedonia our bodies had no rest.

Outside were conflicts and inside were fears." So if you looked outside, conflict.

He then explains a little more fully on 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23 to 38.

And I won't read the whole thing, I'll just give you bullet points.

Stripes, that's being beaten 5 times, prisons, deaths.

He was left for dead quite a number of times after being beaten.

How many of you already are out of your league?

Extreme travel conditions through waters, through fire.

Thirst, bastings, sometimes not by choice, hunger, cold, nakedness, and concern for all the churches on top of that, and then he just throws in this last little phrase, besides the other things.

All right, when I read that I'm like, what?

All of that, I don't want to bore you with all the rest of it, besides the other things.

And this guy, the Apostle Paul wrote most of the New Testament.

If you want to read a document that understands about the issues you're going through, Read the writings of the Apostle Paul, a Jew of Jews, a scholar of scholars.

Of course he was criticized for his preaching, He was criticized for his teaching ability, said he's a babbler.

He says things, powerful, but he's really weak.

I mean the list just goes on and on and on.

It looks like any attack you've ever experienced look like no attack at all, really.

From where or who did all these problems arise?

All Christians at that time, at the very beginning were all Jews.

Went to the Gentiles later, but then the Gentiles turned on him.

People outside the church, people in the church, and then I had my own concerns.

So not only did he have attacks from without, from the Jews, from the Gentiles, from his countrymen, even people in the church, and then he was attacking himself.

Perhaps he came to the conclusion that death, physical death, is the only option.

I don't know if you've ever been there where you felt like, you know, I'd just rather would not go on.

Now if I said Amen right now, you'd think this is a pretty downer sermon, right?

We have the sentence of death in ourselves, that's the problem that we should not we should not do what?

We should not trust in ourselves but in God that's the solution Don't trust in yourself, trust in God.

A few years ago, many years ago, maybe 35 years ago, I was climbing in Salt Lake City in a little place called Little Cottonwood Canyon.

How many of you have ever been to Little Cottonwood Canyon?

Beautiful little canyon, a lot of granites there.

And I was attending this church and this long individual, tall man, actually it was Carl Wilcox.

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Dealing with a Death Sentence

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