“Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10).
TEXT — 2 Corinthians 1:8-11
Message
One Sunday, 18th century English preacher John Wesley was travelling when the ship ran into a life-threatening storm. The evangelist panicked as he thought that death would swallow him and the other passengers. But he was shocked as he watched a band of Christian Monrovians and their wives and children. They showed no sign of anxiety. The English cleric asked them if they were not afraid of death in the face of the storm. They said they were not because they believed in God to deliver them.
That was the point Apostle Paul made when he related to the Corinthian church what he and Silas experienced in Asia during a missionary journey. Paul said: “…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.”
The fear of death has had a crippling effect on the human race leading to the bondage of occultism and pseudo-religious beliefs. Men live in terror, bound by strange spirits. Instead of receiving the simple message of salvation through faith in Christ, they pitiably sell themselves to the devil. They are ignorant of the fact that, as they are “partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14,15). Christ is our sin-bearer, and he paid the price to redeem us from the bondage of sin and the power of death. All who will can, therefore, by faith, receive complete deliverance from sin, Satan, and death. He won the victory for humanity on the cross. His victory is our victory.
Moreover, in this end-time of worldwide upheavals characterised by fears and uncertainties when humanity appears to have “the sentence of death” hanging upon it, like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, everyone must learn to rely on God and His power to deliver from activities of the devil and the antics of evil men. We must look only unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
Thought for the day
If you leave your life with Christ, He will help you to live His life.
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
Great
Hallelujah