Robin Williams

Tim Conway

James chapter four…James chaper 4 perfectly describes murder, but it also describes self-murder. It’s really the same principle. Suicide is basically an expression of an individual, who wants what they want, and will murder to get what they want, even when it’s not what God wants.

The bible has examples:

Abimelech, a murder; Saul, a God rejecter; Ahithophel, a wicked conspirator; Zimri, a wicked king.

Judas was the betrayer of Christ. He committed suicide, it says, “He went and hanged himself,” Mathew 27 and verse 5. What kind of man was he? Jesus himself called him “the son of destruction”.

“Would a Christian commit suicide?”

When somebody commits suicide, it diffidently raises a question. And I know that sometimes, for the sake of hurting family, hurting friends, pastors desiring to try to, you know, not offend and not further hurt the suffering family, may try to encourage the family to believe that everything ended well with the person that’s committed suicide, who professed to be a Christian and maybe even seemed to run well at certain times in his life.

If there are these blatant expressions of unrighteousness and ending your life by murder, coming to the end of a professed Christian life and ending it with murder is suspect at best. It certainly doesn’t leave a good feeling.

Suicide is murder. Suicide is sin. Suicide is an expression of self-will. Suicide is unrighteousness. Suicide is never lawfully permitted by God. And so the one who commits suicide is ending their life not trusting the Lord. They’re ending their life in sin. They’re ending their life in unrighteousness. They’re ending their life flagrantly committing a sin of great proportion. That’s their last endeavor in this lifetime.

Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

The biography of David Brainerd states when he was on his death bed, he experienced such terrible pain. He was dying of tuberculosis in the mid 1700’s at a time when they didn’t have the pain killers like we have today. He suffered excruciatingly. His suffering was so traumatic, it was so agonizing that he said the very thought of having…the very thought entering his mind that he would have to endure that pain even for another minute, he said the thought of it was enough to drive him insane. He was under such agony. But do you know what his thought was in the midst of all of it? Not, “I want to end my life.” His thought was, “God help me and hold me up and keep me from dishonoring you.” His greatest burden under that kind of agony was that he not disgrace his Lord, that he end life well.

Many people that commit suicide, believing themselves to be Christians, immediately find that they weren’t. That ending their life by such an expression of seeking their own desire, not God’s, it’s probably the final exclamation mark, a lot of times, to a life that was lived in rebellion to God.

And whether a person is saved or a person is lost, I know this. Nobody wants to end their life that way; nobody wants to end their life that way.

The person who is lost, he may think he’s saved but he’s lost, he certainly does not want to end his life that way. Because whatever pain he thinks he’s escaping, he’s stepping into horrors beyond his imagination.

Jesus Himself said hell is to be escaped at all cost. If you have to cut off hands, cut off feet, gouge out eyes, in a spiritual sense, you have to make this radical amputation of idols in this life, He said “Do it.” Whatever radical moves, however aggressive, however violent it may seem to sever yourself from your sins, you need to do it in order to escape hell.

He said it is so fearful. He described it as a hell of fire, a furnace of fire, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is a place of eternal punishment; it goes on forever. And whatever suffering is here, the Apostle Paul says, is momentary and light. Whatever is there, whatever a person is trying to escape here, it is ten thousand times worse afterwards, something Jesus said needs to be escaped, no matter what it costs you.

And so to that person who is wrestling with whether they’re even saved or not, they’re contemplating committing suicide, you do not want to commit suicide and come face to face with God Almighty in your sin, face to face with a God who takes no pleasure in your unrighteousness. You do not want to end your life in one final act of rebellion to come face to face with the God you’ve rebelled against.

If you are suffering such pain in your life that you just don’t feel like you can stand up under it, Jesus says, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” He calls you to find rest in Him. He says He gives help. If you call upon Him, He will give you grace to bear up.

And if you truly are a Christian but you just are in such a deep dark hole, again, even if you’re saved, you don’t want that to be the last act of your life, an act of rebellion, stepping off into eternity not finishing well, leaving behind that testimony to your family, your children, your parents, your friends that the grace of God was not sufficient to bear you up underneath those things. You don’t want to step out of life on that note.

Standing strong to the end, fighting the good fight, trusting the Lord. Jesus went before us and He suffered beyond anything we can suffer, and He’s sympathetic and He says that He’ll give us help and we can find help in Him.

So, no Christian should want to end his life in a way that is not pleasing and no lost person should want to end his life, knowing that the moment he ends it, there he is, face to face with a God who is full of wrath towards him. Better to call upon the Lord and find mercy from that God and grace to press through and fullness in Christ to fill all the emptiness in the heart.

So many people, they commit suicide just because they’re empty, they’re lonely. They haven’t…this life has just failed them. But that’s right, that’s what the Bible teaches. But Jesus never fails His people. Jesus is altogether lovely, altogether satisfying, altogether fills us with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. Joy and satisfaction are to be found in Christ.

Don’t, don’t kill yourself. Because what you are desiring, you’re not going to get. And everything your heart craves is truly to be found in Christ. Not in death, because death isn’t non-existence. Death isn’t annihilation. Death is eternal punishment for those who reject Christ as saviour. It is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is punishment for sins. It is not going to end the pain; it is only going to begin the real pain.
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What does it mean to be born again, to be saved from your sins.