God's Deliverance - Part 1

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website, morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. Turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. And the title of this morning's message is, God Will Still Deliver Us.

Paul’s Comfort for the Corinthian Church

And we began this letter last week. You remember we went through verses 1 through 7, where the apostle Paul was attempting to comfort the church that he had planted. This is what Paul would do. He would travel from place to place, preaching the gospel.

And when enough people believed, or if enough people believed in a certain city or region, then a church was planted. And then Paul would then depart, and later he would check up on them. He would visit them or write letters to them, and his letters became the bulk of the New Testament epistles.

Now, Paul, after he founded the church at Corinth, very soon after, they started going astray. Things went wrong. So Paul, he wrote to them, he visited them. And after all the adversity, and those of you who have been with us for some time, you remember the adversity as we went through the book of 1 Corinthians.

After all of that, the church started to correct the problems. The people that were in sin, many of them, if not most of them, had repented and made things right. So now, Paul is writing this second letter, which is actually one of four in total, but two were lost to history.

But Paul is now writing to the church at Corinth with a different tone. And this, as we said last week, this probably is the most personal letter the Apostle Paul ever wrote. Because he loves the people in Corinth, and now he wants to encourage them.

And as he said last time, the God of all comfort will comfort you in all your tribulations. And by extension, that is a spiritual promise that we also can lay hold of. But this week, we're going to see how God, here's another spiritual promise we can lay hold of.

God will still deliver his people. Before we begin reading, let's open in a word of prayer. Our Father, may all glory, honor, and praise be given to you and to your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to this earth to reveal your nature, your character, and your will.

And as the scripture says, this is the will of God for our lives, our sanctification. And we remember what Jesus prayed to you, Father. He said, sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. So I pray that each one here, each one listening would receive a blessing through your word.

We pray it in Christ's name.

Amen.

God Delivers His People in Despair

All right, let's begin. 2 Corinthians 1, starting in verse 8. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened beyond measure and above strength, so that we despaired even of life.

Yes, we have the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us in whom we trust that he will still deliver us.

You also helping together in prayer for us that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many. For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity.

Not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God. And more abundantly toward you, for we are not writing any other things to you than what you read or understand. And now I trust you will understand, even to the end, as also you have understood us in part, that we are your boast as you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

And may the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his word. Now to understand what Paul is saying and to get some context, let's just go back a few verses. Look at verses, verse five and into verse six.

He says, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now, if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. So you notice Paul says, if we are afflicted.

So Paul went through a great deal of trials and suffering. Everywhere he went, it seems that there was somebody threatening him with physical violence or threatening his life. One occasion, Paul was actually stoned.

It appeared that he was stoned to death or to the brink of death. And some speculate that Paul actually did die. Because when we get to chapter 12, Paul speaks of his vision of paradise, how he was caught up into the third heaven.

So some people believe that Paul was actually stoned to death and the Lord raised him back to life. And that's when he saw his vision of heaven. I don't personally believe he died, but I suppose that's a possibility.

But at least it was a near-death experience. So here's the point. This kind of thing, being threatened, being stoned, and even some of the other apostles, well, all of them except John, were eventually killed.

That type of thing takes its toll, right? You can just imagine a little bit of suffering you go through kind of puts you on edge. Imagine what Paul went through. So he suffered a great deal for the Lord and for his word.

So the sufferings abounded. Here's the good news, though. The consolation also abounded. So God gave Paul the strength to endure whatever life threw at him. And now he's telling the church that just as God delivered me, God will also deliver you.

Paul’s Trouble in Asia and the Riot at Ephesus

Now in verse 8, he mentions our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. So what is he referring to? What happened to Paul in Asia?

Most Bible students tend to agree that Paul is referring to the riots at Ephesus. So let's look at this account that Paul went through by turning to Acts chapter 19. Great deal of rioting in the city of Ephesus.

Now he says Asia, right? And when we think of Asia, what do you think of? You think of the Far East, right? You think of China and Japan and Korea. But when the Bible talks about Asia, that's not what it's referring to.

It's talking about Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey in the Middle East, not the Far East. You remember the book of Revelation where the Lord gave the Apostle John the vision to write it down, send it to the seven churches of Asia or Asia Minor.

And Ephesus was one of those churches. So in 2 Corinthians 1, the Apostle Paul says, We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves.

Paul thought he was going to die. So let's read this account starting in Acts chapter 19, verse 1. And this hopefully will give us a better idea of what he's talking about to the Corinthian church. It says, and it happened when Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus.

And finding some disciples, he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And I love this response. So they said to him, We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.

So these were, how is that possible? These were sincere believers, but they had very little information. They had the baptism of John. They had followed the teachings of John the Baptist, but they had never heard of the fullness of the gospel of Christ.

So to make a long story short, Paul preaches to them. He baptizes them. And in verse 8, it says, He went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.

Verse 9. But when some of them were hardened and did not believe, they spoke evil of the way. What does that mean? They spoke evil of the way. Well, before Christianity was Christianity, what was it called?

The way.

And before Christians were called Christians or believers, they were called followers of the way. Why is that? Remember John 14, verse 6. What did Jesus say? I am the way, the truth, and the life. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life.

So Christians were called followers of the way. So they were speaking evil of the Christian faith is what is going on. So says Paul departed from them and withdrew the disciples. And verse 10. And this continued for two years, so that all who dwell in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.

Isn't that an amazing statement? So that all who dwelt in Asia heard. That's a large territory. So Paul was making some serious headway in Ephesus. And the ministry was just expanding at an amazing rate.

So Paul had the ability to preach. He was preaching the gospel. He had the freedom to do that. There was a miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We didn't read about that. Also, the next section of Acts 19 talks about strange or unusual miracles that were done by the apostle Paul.

And this got everybody's attention. So Paul had an amazing opportunity. God had given them this ministry. And do you remember what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 16? The end of 1 Corinthians, he made reference to this, where he tells the church that a great and effective door had opened to him.

But do you remember what he said after that? But there are many adversaries. And this is what happens when people see and when the devil sees the word of God being proclaimed with power, when he sees the kingdom of God expanding, there's nothing Satan hates more.

So what does he do? He stirs up his followers to oppose the gospel ministry. And that's certainly what happened with Paul. So the devil stirred up his followers. This brings us to Acts chapter 19, verse 18.

So after the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, it says, and many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burn them in the sight of all.

And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled 50 ,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. So the heathens were converting on mass. Just large multitudes of people getting saved.

And you know, they were sincere. How do you know they were sincere? Well, he says they were practicing magic. So it would have been like sorcery or witchcraft. They probably had a large collection of books and scrolls that contained their teachings.

And I don't know, spells and all their men.

And what did they do?

This stuff was worth a lot of money.

What did they do?

Yeah, they didn't go say, hey, this stuff is valuable. Let's have a tag sale and cash in so we can spread this false doctrine to someone else, whoever buys it. They didn't say, hey, let's sell it on eBay so we can make.

No, they burned it.

They lost out a lot of money. And when someone comes to Christ and they do something where they're losing money, you know, they're sincere. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Coronet Church.

If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscoronetchurch .com. And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett.

Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.