Can a Christian Commit Suicide? by Tim Conway

well the question I've been asked is can a Christian commit suicide and if we really think about what suicide is what is suicide taking your life killing yourself it's murder right it's self murder and if we just if we consider suicide just from the standpoint that it's murder you know you start thinking what what does the Bible say about murder why do people murder what does James tell us James says this very specifically in James chapter 4 verse 2 you desire and you do not have so you murder right that's what it says well think about how this applies to self murder as well I used to work with an unbeliever when I was an engineer who told me that he believed that suicide was an expression it was like the fullest expression or the ultimate expression of self hate and I said I don't think so I think it's an expression of self love they say how do you figure they're destroying themselves well it comes right from this text why do people commit suicide you desire and do not have so you murder I mean people murder including self murder because they have desires that they're unable to fulfill that's why people commit suicide they want something you know you know in this country back when we entered in to the Great Depression the stock market crashed and many of the businessmen committed suicide why because they wanted their money back and they couldn't get it they desired and they didn't have so they killed themselves sometimes a young person will commit suicide side to strike back at a parent to hurt somebody what is it they desire they desire to inflict hurt but in life they don't feel like they can they can achieve that or it's probably common self murder is inflicted because people desire to be delivered from what their suffering their suffering pain their suffering loneliness a young man will lose his girlfriend and contemplate suicide or actually try to go through with it maybe even accomplish it why because he desires and he can't have and he thinks that this is there's there's a thinking that well if I kill myself then I just stop existing and the pain goes away the hurt goes away and see they desire to be free of the pain free of the hurt free of the suffering and it isn't that so is it James chapter 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 that's that's really what suicide is it's having a desire for something that God isn't pleased to give you right now and you're going to try to take it into your own hands to get it even when that's not the way God once you did get it God would have you wait on him God would have you to take your suffering to him God would have you to look to Christ to help you and fill that emptiness that that's you see what happens people commit suicide not because they desire Christ but because they desire something else when God would have us desire Christ and treasure Christ and find our satisfaction in Christ that's why the Christian when they are suffering even the greatest things in this life can bear up under it without taking his own life because Christ is always greater than anything else that he might desire so let's let's consider this further if we just simply did this if we say can a Christian commit suicide well if we were just to go to the Bible and look at I came up with seven suicides in the Bible I don't think there's any more as well as I could think and I googled it as well so I I think there are seven think about the men who have committed suicide I don't think there's any women it's all men a bin maalik you guys remember who Abimelech was this is what said of Abimelech he's the one who hired worthless and reckless fellows who followed him and he went to his father's house at Afra and killed his brothers the sons of Garibaldi men on one stone he killed his seventy brothers tremendously wicked man anyways Abimelech he committed suicide he was he was trying to take a city standing at a tower a certain woman through an upper millstone on Abimelech head and crushed his skull then he called quickly to one of the young men his armor-bearer and said to him draw your sword and kill me lest they say of me a woman killed him you see what his desire was he desired and didn't have he desired life he desired not to have the reputation that a woman killed him and so he resorts to it's an expression of pride right in his death even not a not a good guy to associate with in other words if somebody is claiming to be a Christian in there contemplating suicide they're identifying with a man like a bin maalik who else Saul Saul is a man who desired to take his own life again he had desires of not being abused by the Philistines so he called upon his armor-bearer to put an end to his life he said draw your sword and thrust me through with it lest these uncircumcised come and mistreat me but his armor-bearer would not for he feared greatly therefore Saul took his own life or he took his own sword and fell upon it and we know about Saul with Saul a righteous man Saul was not a righteous man he I mean he had this set of him because you have rejected the word of the Lord he also has rejected you from being king so this was a god rejecter so a Bimala consol those are the kind of men that we find in Scripture Saul's armor bearer when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead he also fell upon his sword and died and we don't know much about him other than these following a bad King I hid the fell ever hear that name a HIPPA fell was the counsellor for David and when David's son took over and took the throne a hill stayed there with him and it says when a hip L saw that his counsel in 2nd Samuel 17 23 when he saw that his counsel was not followed he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city he set his house in order and hanged himself and he died and was buried in the tomb of his father this is a man who was among the conspirators with Absalom he was he rose up against a righteous king in David and he was involved in the conspiracy against him incited with the evil son so this is this is a wicked counselor so you have a hit the fail you have Saul you have a bimbo how about Zimri this is also a character that committed suicide not one you want to identify with first Kings 1618 he was a king in Israel listen to what it says of him when Zimri saw that the city was taken he went into the Citadel of the king's house and burned the King's house over him with fire and died so he basically burned himself to death because of his sins that he committed doing evil in the sight of the Lord walking in the way of Jeroboam and for his sin which he committed making Israel to sin so this is a man whose sin was very great before God so you have a Abimelech a murder Saul a God rejecter a hit the fell a wicked conspirator zimri a wicked King how about Judas Judas was the betrayer of Christ he committed suicide it says he went and hanged himself Matthew 27 and verse 5 what kind of man was he I mean Jesus himself called him the son of destruction now that's 6 we don't know a lot about the armour-bearer the other one that comes up is Samson and we know Samson was a righteous man but I think it needs to be also clarified Samson did not commit suicide per say I mean in other words he didn't push those columns out because his agenda was to take his own life if he would have pushed those if you were to push those columns away and ended up living he would have been quite happy his agenda was to bring vengeance on the enemies of God in fact he was praying to the Lord right as he did this lord give me strength just this once more because he wanted to take vengeance on them for having put out his eyes but he said his primary agenda was not ending his own life and so that that probably he's not one that we really want to give that strong consideration to but these other men these are the kind of examples that we get in the Bible of men that committed suicide clearly this is not the practice of righteous men and so somebody that would that would claim to be a Christian and contemplate suicide would not they would not be considering an activity they would not be considering an action that is typically attributed to righteous men but that which is attributed to wicked men evil men this is the practice of people that hate God hate God's people [Music] but that being said let's think for a second here what kind of sin is suicide we said it before what kind it's murder it's self murder if we just ask this question have murderers been forgiven are there any cases of murders in the scriptures that have been forgiven David Moses so so if we were to ask the question did Jesus died on the cross for the sin of murder we would have to say yes David and Moses would be proof of that and in fact didn't Jesus say this mark chapter 3 verse 28 truly I say to you all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin did you did you hear that all sins will be forgiven the children of men was suicide covered on the cross apparently if all sins can be forgiven what we don't what we find what we find in the Bible is the unpardonable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit now I guess if we could prove that suicide and blaspheming the Holy Spirit were the same thing we could conclude that it's the unpardonable sin but it's not that it's not self murder blaspheming the Holy Spirit is blaspheming the Holy Spirit self murder is a different thing and so if all sins can be forgiven then we would need to say that it would be included in all sins and that it could be forgiven the children of men so it it seems that if it's not a part of an unpardonable sin it's a pardonable sin right I mean if we were just if we were just gonna wrestle with that text there in mark or the the parallel text in Matthew we would have to say it is a pardonable sin if we're just dealing with the fact that all sins can be forgiven but in thinking further about whether a Christian can commit suicide we probably need to go further because obviously theoretically it's in the category of a pardonable sin theoretically in other words if you have a Christian who's truly a Christian we know he's justified we know all of the sins are pardoned so if we actually ask the question can a Christian commit suicide well we would say this if a Christian commits suicide certainly it's forgiven because he's pardoned but that that's probably not the question that we need to really be asking the question we need to be asking is would a Christian commit suicide because we could we could phrase this another way we could say can a Christian rob a bank and shoot and kill the teller the last day of his life or we might phrase it this way if a Christian was so greedy that he robbed a bank and then happened to shoot and kill a teller the last day of his life would he be saved well you see if he's a Christian we'll certainly he would be because he's a Christian but the question we need to ask is would he do that is is that really the fruit of the life of a Christian certainly we have to ask that question would he do that because the Bible tells us pretty plainly things like this 1st Corinthians 6 verse 9 do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God we we see something like this first John 2 verse 3 and by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his Commandments whoever says I know him but does not keep his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word in him truly to love God is perfected by this we may know that we are in him whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked so in light of texts like these and many others we could look at shouldn't there be serious questions that would be raised if somebody ended their life that way any different than if somebody ended their life if the last day of their life they robbed a bank and shot the teller I mean what it tells us is there is an express manifestation of unrighteousness at the end of their life which certainly would call into question and raise serious doubts about the genuineness of the faith of anyone who claimed to be a Christian and yet committed suicide or bank robbery the last day of their life you know when somebody commits suicide it definitely raises a question and I know that sometimes for the sake of hurting family hurting friends pastors desiring to to try to you know not not offend and not further hurt the suffering family may try to encourage the family to believe that that everything ended well with the with a person that's committed suicide who who professed to be a Christian and maybe even seemed to run well at certain times in his life but at best it brings into question the genuineness of the person's Christianity it has to because Jesus and Paul and the other writers of Scripture raise again and again and again questions about the authenticity of people's Christianity or professions of faith 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 and sin they're ending their life and unrighteousness they're ending their life flagrantly committing a sin of of great proportion that's how that's their last endeavor in this lifetime Jesus said that if you endure to the end you will be saved what does that mean endure in the faith endure trusting him endure all the way to the end is that enduring to the end when a man ends his life did they endure to the end I don't think we can tell for certain and it certainly it definitely raises doubt but that being said I don't I know this if somebody's watching and they're contemplating suicide a person feels alone in the pain they're suffering they feel like nobody else can identify and the truth is I don't know the depths of which God may call people to suffer I don't know the depths of spiritual attacks I don't know the depths of sorrow of pain of weakness that can come on people I mean I've obviously had to experience some things but I don't know the fullness of the depth of what God calls certain people to suffer but I do know this I've read the biography of David Brainerd before and when he was on his deathbed he experienced such terrible pain he was dying of tuberculosis in the mid 1700s at a time when when they didn't have the painkillers like we have today he suffered excruciating Lee 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 you know what his thought was in the midst of all of it not I want to end my life his thought was God helped me and hold me up and keep me from dishonouring you his greatest burden under that kind of agony was that he not disgrace his Lord that he end life well is it possible that a true child of God can experience such pain brainerd he didn't end his life by suicide he called upon the Lord to the end asking for grace to endure the suffering that God was permitting him to suffer and he ended well but might it be that another Christian under the same pain would not be able to stand up and would opt out is it possible but such sorrow such depression such despair might come upon somebody and unlike Brainerd they're not able to hold up perhaps and because I haven't experienced at all and I haven't been in every situation perhaps we we don't know but but even if that's possible again it just puts a cloud over a person who ends their life that way and I have to fear that 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 is probably the final exclamation mark a lot of times to a life that was lived in rebellion to God and whether 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 costs if you have to cut off hands cut off feet gouge out eyes in a spiritual sense you have to 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 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 he will give you grace to bear up and if you truly are a Christian but you're just 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 you don't want to step out of life on that note rather we want to we want to step out the way brainer did step out under the most excruciating suffering but rather than choosing to take your own life fearing lest even under all that pain you should do any dishonor to Jesus Christ to his name to the name of God determined to bear up under whatever it is in order to end life well Oh to the family and friends that saw him die they could say glory be to God because he finished well they saw the grace of God in his life Jonathan Edwards was so impressed by it he wrote his I mean that was like an exclamation light mark on a life well-lived that inspired him to publish the man's biography whereas even if a true Christian were to end his life with suicide it just puts a cloud over his life for everybody it brings shame and so 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 going out of this life resting on his help that's the way we want to end it and so whether we're lost whether we're saved we do not want to end our life with suicide it is not an honorable end for the Christian and like I say I'm very fearful that those who are so determined to take into their own hands the way to end life and do so in a way that is not pleasing to the Lord Paul said that we need to try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord and ending our life in suicide is not pleasing to him so we did know Christian should want to end his life in a way that is not pleasing and no lost person shouldn't 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 and better 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 I mean so many people they commit suicide just because they're empty they're lonely they they haven't this life has just failed them but that's 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 gonna get in 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 his 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 god help you amen

Channel: SermonIndex.net

Views: 26,206

Rating: 4.316505 out of 5

Keywords: Tim Conway, Tim Conway Sermons, Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth

Id: wVIqvSqPcjo

Length: 32min 20sec (1940 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 07 2012