You Cannot Defeat A Dead Man

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” (2Co 4:8-11 AV)

We all suffer from hardships.  This passage above is not recipe for good time in the midst of bad times one hundred percent of the time.  But it is a solution for living in victory even when it appears to be defeat.  If we take note of the negative emotions which Paul admits to, they seem like they can be overwhelming.  There is troubled (afflicted), persecution, perplexed (trapped), and cast down which means thrown down as in a boxer who is thrown to the mat and cannot rise.  These are not pleasant experiences.  Then Paul states they will not arrive that the deepest sense of those same emotions.  Distressed means hemmed in as in squeezed tightly with no hope of escape.   Despair means to be completely without hope.  Forsaken is the ultimate end of persecution. Solitary confinement without any companionship in misery.  Destruction would be the same as if that boxer lost his life in the process.  In other words, Paul is not telling us these emotions are avoidable.  They may not be.  There are times of trouble, persecution, being perplexed, and depression.  We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel this way.  What Paul is saying is there is a way we can live through these things and come out the other end being used of God rather than to suffer total and complete defeat.

 One of the reasons these emotions can get a grip on our minds and hearts is that we have failed to completely surrender.  We have failed to agree with God that our lives are not our own. If we are totally and completely surrendered to the will of God, then these emotions, when they come, will be seen in the truth and reality that God has asked us to go through the events that caused them for His glory and we feel privileged to do so.  This is to what the great Apostle is referring when he stated the underlined portion of text.  Paul, and those with him, had already decided that no matter what God asked them to do or go through, they would do it.  They bore in their minds the mind of Christ.  That being, total surrender.  So, if the LORD asked them to go through things that resulted in trouble, persecution, being perplexed, or cast down, that was part of the deal in signing up for service.  They would not be defeated because in totally surrendering, there was nothing to defeat.  They had already determined no matter what, even to death, their life belonged to God.  This didn’t stop the emotions felt in the midst of trials.  What it did was it guarded those emotions from taking them to a place of total defeat and uselessness.

 I have been through a few circumstances that are similar.  There is a time when one has to give up thinking the situation at hand will turn out the way we want it to and just go with it.  Do what one can rather than try to accomplish what cannot be accomplished.  Discomfort is ignored and even becomes part of the expected experience.  One has a good cry knowing that our optimistic expectation will not happen and goes with the task at hand.  There are two which comes to mind.  One was a Boy Scout trip down the Erie Canal during a rainy Saturday morning.  The other was a hunting trip in which we harvested our game without thinking of the major undertaking it was to retrieve the downed animal.  Both of these experiences pushed me beyond what I thought I could endure.  But we made it.  Both experiences actually turned out to be more enjoyable than at first, they seemed to be.  Giving up on being warm and dry, we plodded along in the rain and made a game of it.  We dragged those deer out of the woods with a few friends and had a great time of fellowship in the process.  The point here is obvious.  If we are totally dead to self before we plod along in God’s perfect will, then there is nothing to defeat.  It has already been surrendered.  We are defeated because we never surrendered to begin with.