What does the Bible teach about suicide?
Part three.
Hi, welcome to today's Little Lesson.
We have been discussing a very serious subject, that of suicide.
And I have the idea that sooner or later, if it hasn't already happened, somebody who's
contemplating suicide is going to stumble upon this video.
And so naturally I'm going to be very sympathetic toward those people.
Because people who are contemplating suicide, it seems like a viable good alternative to
them.
And those who do commit suicide think it's the best thing they can do.
And in so many cases, that's wrong.
We all go through times when we are in the valley, right?
And we can't control all the negative circumstances that happen to everybody at different times,
the valleys of our lives.
So I sympathize greatly with you, but I'm going to encourage you, hang in there.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, well, that's the solution right there.
The reason that you're so distressed, fundamentally, is because you're out of sync with what God
has in general for your life.
God's plan for your life is to believe in Jesus, be his follower, and experience all
the blessings of following Jesus.
And when you one day die, you go into heaven and possess eternal life.
That's God's plan for everybody.
So if you're not a Christian and you're thinking about committing suicide, well, think about
becoming a Christian and that'll solve a lot of problems.
It doesn't solve every problem instantly and so forth, but man, it gives you a whole new
perspective and reason to live.
And if you are a Christian, if you are a believer in Jesus and you're considering suicide, well,
I sympathize with you as well.
But you know, I think in your heart, you know, that's not the right thing, right?
In general.
And again, this is the third of three lessons.
I did give us a little caveat...
Exceptions here in the second Little Lesson.
Now I want to look at a guy in the Bible who, he didn't commit suicide, but he was contemplating
it.
Okay?
See if you can identify with this guy.
You probably know the story of Elijah and the wicked King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel.
And Elijah got all the prophets of Baal together up on Mount Carmel, and he did this big test
and they put the sacrifice, and the prophets of Baal danced around their sacrifice, asking
Baal to send fire.
And of course he didn't.
And then Elijah set up his sacrifice, and then poured water over it, drenched it, so
nobody can say that he flipped a match over there, and he called on God and fire fell
from heaven and consumed the sacrifice on the altar.
And then Elijah killed or had killed the all the prophets of Baal, and he got in big trouble
when news reached Ahab and Jezebel, they were after him.
So he ran for his life, and he's thinking, I mean, I've got the...
Imagine if you had the head of state and his wicked wife wanting you dead.
That's a dire circumstance.
You might think to yourself, "Yeah, one way out of this is just to kill myself because
they're going to kill me."
And again, I think that's often when people think about committing suicide.
Almost all of the suicides in the Bible, which there are like six or seven, for the most
part, they were done by people who were going to die anyways.
All right.
So anyways, I'm just cutting into 1 Kings chapter 19, and where it says Elijah was afraid,
he arose, he ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah.
And he left his servant there, but he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness,
so he's getting deep, deep into the desert here to try to disappear.
And he came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might
die.
And he said, "It is enough now, Oh Lord, take my life for I am not better than my fathers."
So he's asking God to kill him.
He's not going to kill himself, but he wants to die.
So another person of a lesser spiritual devotion than Elijah might have taken this one step
further and said, "I think I'll just kill myself."
All right, but it's not the right solution.
And God sent an angel, and comforted Elijah, and made it very clear, "No, I got a plan
for you yet, there's still more work to be done.
And so we're not going to end it."
And that's the thing, that's why suicide is not a good alternative because if you don't
kill yourself, there's many days ahead, and circumstances can change.
For those who look to God, the Bible is full of stories of circumstances that change because
people look to God, and he turned things around.
And I'm smiling right now, but there's times in my life where you could have found me weeping
and crying and in despair and in darkness and in the valley and contemplating suicide.
But I'm so glad I didn't.
I'm so glad I didn't.
I think most people who have contemplated suicide, which it might be everybody, I mean,
to at least to some degree.
They're...
At this point in time, if things are going better in their life, they're not thinking
about it and they're glad that they didn't do it.
Okay?
So there's a lot more waiting for you.
And what the tragedy is here is that the second leading cause of death in the world for those
between the ages of 15 and 29 is suicide.
These are people that have the majority of their life still out ahead of them, but things
look so dark and gloom right now that they're throwing in the towel, and they're missing
out on all the days that God had ordained for their lives, primarily to find him, discover
all of his plan for their lives, and walk in it, and then die naturally of old age,
and go into eternity to be welcomed into his eternal kingdom.
Okay, so that's the cool thing.
That's the good thing.
And that's what I'm encouraging you to do if you're contemplating suicide.
Is it possible for a Christian to commit suicide?
Should we conclude that everyone who commits suicide couldn't have been a Christian?
And I would never be so black and white as to say that, because you can be sick in your
head just like you can be sick in your body.
And I'm not going to be pointing the finger of judgment.
I'm not, no, I can't say that definitively.
Although I think in general we could say that the person who commits suicide, who claims
to be a Christian, probably, they're definitely not walking in abundant life right at that
point in time when they took their own life.
But they'll have to answer for it when they stand before Jesus.
And I'm not going to give his verdict, I'll let him give his verdict.
Some are so quick to say, "Well that's murder."
You know, the self murder.
Well, like I said in the very first Little Lesson, there is a difference.
The crime of murder, the sin of murder is motivated by selfishness and anger and hatred
of another person.
And you solve your problem by killing them, taking them off the planet.
Well, this is a little different.
I mean, when you're so distressed, and I'm not giving anyone the allowance to commit
suicide, you know that if you've watched everything I've said, but what I'm trying to say is just
bring a little bit of a balance here to those who just, "It's black and white.
If you commit suicide, you go to hell."
Because obviously you committed murder, and no murderer has eternal life.
But again I think God gave us brains to think a little bit here, right?
Okay.
And you have to admit that there is a difference between the motivation of the person who kills
themselves and kills somebody else.
Right?
Okay.
Anyways, there's hope in Jesus Christ, so don't even think any longer about taking your
life.
Seek God, and he cares.
He really cares.
All right, thanks for joining me on this Little Lesson.
God bless you.