Christians And The Act Of Suicide

(February 2009)

 

 

Darkness Or At-The-Moment Thoughts

 

…I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (John 8:12).

 

Walking in the light of life is one who is obediently walking in the Word of God or following Jesus. To walk in darkness is to walk outside the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world.  Darkness is sin and sin is of Satan and it has no part in the light of life, that being Jesus.  Brothers and Sisters, anything outside of God’s Word and will is darkness.  By choice, free willed human beings, prior to suicide, were on a journey with a dark cloud hovering over their minds as a result of sin. Dark clouds or darkness hovers over people because they have given place to demons when they engaged in sin that went unrepented. Once the first spirit of darkness (demon spirit) gets in, he slowly brings in other demons until the poor victim is completely unaware of how his life has changed.  Demonic spirits get a foothold in the victim’s life little by little while the victim may continue claiming to be a Christian and going to church. However, decisions made by the victim are heavily influenced by those demons because of the unrepented sin and the victim’s unwillingness to manage the hardships in life along with a dedicated prayer life and daily digestion of God’s Word. The end-product of this is oppression, depression, and eventually total control of the mind and thoughts of death. Christian or not, unrepented sin precipitates a life of walking in darkness – under demonic control.
 

            There are times of much distress in human beings that they wish they were dead rather than deal with the hardships they are facing.  However, more often than not, people don’t really want to die and certainly not by their own hands. In the Biblical story of Jonah, rather than obey God by going to preach to the gentile people in Nineveh, Jonah went to Tarshish to get away from God.  After his experience in the whale’s belly, he did go to Nineveh and warned the people they’d be overthrown, and as a result they repented of their sins and God forgave them.  Jonah was angry because he really wanted God’s judgment to fall upon the Ninevites but God instead forgave them when they repented.  The good in all of that made Jonah so angry that he twice asked God to take his life which God would not do.  In the case of Jonah, he found life unendurable that brought on “at-the-moment thoughts” of preferring death over life, which is not the same as wanting to die at your own hands.  From time-to-time, human beings have those “at-the-moment thoughts” of wanting death rather than life. 
         

            While Jonah had an ongoing and unwavering relationship with God, even in despair, he did not have a dark cloud hovering over him and tempting him to want to take his own life.  In other words, there was no invisible war going on in Jonah’s mind whereby the “other” voice was completely in charge of his life as is the case with suicide victims who don’t just wish death because of at-the-moment situations, but think on death constantly. Prophets Jonah and Elijah both had “at the moment thoughts” of preferring death rather than face the strains of life but those were not thoughts of suicide, but reactions to misery in their lives, and there is a difference. God did not grant Jonah his heart’s desire – death, but He reasoned with him and that put an end to the matter.  Furthermore, if clouds of darkness due to unrepented sin had hovered over the minds of either one of those two prophets, God never would have used them for the great works they did for Him. It was life fatigue that the two prophets experienced that made them prefer death over life at that moment, not hovering dark clouds due to unrepented sin.   
 

            The pains of life’s hardships envelop both mind and spirit when Christians are unable to hand them over to the Lord.  Unbeknownst to the them, they allow the master of darkness – evil spirits of the blue funk – melancholy or depression to make their way into their life, little by little, as they continue not letting go of their hardships or burdens through constant prayer and trust in the Lord (Matthew 11:28-30). There would be no dark clouds over the minds of people if they would just live simple and lowly lives obedient to God’s Word, steadfast in prayer and the Word of God.  Demons would not get a foot-hold in their minds bringing them to states of hopelessness.   
 

When God doesn’t seem to come through concerning the Christian’s hardships, they should not fall prey to believing the lying thoughts that come to mind about God having abandoned them.  They should continue walking in God’s ways and trusting in Him – not in death. No hardship on earth is unendurable but the darkness covering one’s mind convinces them that is so. When an individual’s life is given over to sin that is unrepented,  that’s when life is found to be unendurable and the individual wants to check out of this world rather than suffer pain, depression, and torment.  At that point they are no longer in charge of their life and in the eyes of men, they are irrational or having mental problems when in reality, they are victims of darkness. Where there is darkness, there is no Jesus or His light of life is barely flickering, if flickering at all.       

Biblical Suicidals Were Victims Of Darkness     

            Abimelech:  Judges 9:50-54:  Gideon, also known as Jerubbaal, had a son  by a concubine whose name was Abimelech. After Gideon’s death Abimelech killed 70 of Gideon’s 71 sons in order to take over leadership in Israel.  In battle, Abimelech went to burn down a tower when a woman threw a millstone on him breaking his skull, but not killing himself he called for his armourbearer to kill him with a sword.  The Bible said Abimelech got his recompences for his wicked act of murdering his father’s 70 sons. He died in his sin as God rendered the wickedness of him.  If Abimelech was wicked in the eyes of God, why would he be welcomed with open-arms into the presence of God whom he had willfully rebelled against? Abimelech was wicked.  He had spirits of darkness controlling his life.   

            Samson:  Judges 16:27-30:  Because of Israel’s evil, God delivered them into the hands of the Philistines and yet, He also made the way for their deliverance at the hands of the warrior, Samson.  Though Samson sinned and paid for his sins by his afflictions, he was the warrior who somewhat delivered the people of Israel through his own death while killing 3,000 Philistine enemies.  It is not shown in the Bible that Samson was penitent but more like revengeful for the Philistines having gouged out his eyes, he did pray “O Lord God, remember me…and strengthen me…only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). For the Lord to grant Sampson his request, Samson must have repented because the only time God hears the prayers of the sinner is when he first of all repents of his sins. God’s anointing was restored in Samson’s life and he resumed his calling of the warrior killing the enemy as he had done in the past. Samson’s death was an act of war against the enemy of God’s people and God blessed him with the strength to bring down the pillars to kill them.  If the spirits of darkness had had control over Samson’s life, God would never have poured out His anointing upon Samson to carry out that one last act of war.  Samson’s death was not suicide but the honorable death of a warrior.         
 
            Saul:  1 Samuel 31:4-5:  King Saul did not die to bring honor and glory to God or Israel, for he had already given his mind over to demonic spirits (1 Samuel 15) when he rebelled against God. Saul rejected God and God rejected him, and on that account God anointed David to be king.  As soon as David was anointed king, God’s Spirit left Saul completely and the spirits of evil who had been gradually taking over his life, were then in full charge (1 Samuel 16:14). The same evil that tempted Saul to kill David (1 Samuel 18:10; 19:9), in the end, convinced Saul to take his own life. As the evil spirits worked in Saul’s life, they nowadays work the very same way in the lives of suicidals.  Prior to the suicide act, at some point in life, the victim, in all conscience, rebels against God and an evil spirit enters into their life, and eventually convinces them to take their life.  Saul is proof that a spirit of darkness (demonic; evil) is in the life of anyone who commits suicide and is there because a door was opened in the victim’s life for the spirit to enter in through sin.    
    

            Ahithophel:  2 Samuel 17:23:  Ahithophel was King David’s counselor (2 Samuel 15:12) and conspired with Absalom, David’s son (2 Samuel 15:31) against David.  To Absolom, Ahithophel’s counsel was as though from God and when his counsel was seen not on par with that of Hushai, who fabricated counsel to mislead Absolom, Ahithophel committed suicide when he saw Absolom choosing other than his counsel.  Ahithophel was ungodly and worked with the enemy of King David, whom God had anointed. Ahithophel had a spirit of darkness that caused him to betray God’s anointed, King David.  If this man was wicked in the eyes of God, and he was, why would he be welcomed with open-arms into the presence of God whom he had willfully rebelled against by betraying David to take over the throne God had placed him on? Ahithophel’s spirit of darkness convinced him to commit suicide. 
        
            Zimri:  1 Kings 16:15-20:  King Zimri, the treasonist, reigned only seven days over the kingdom of Israel. He had usurped the throne by murdering King Elah and thus had a spirit of darkness controlling his life due to unrepentance. He committed suicide by burning down the king’s palace with himself inside.   If Zimri, a treasonist and murderer, was wicked in the eyes of God, why would he be welcomed with open-arms into the presence of God whom he had willfully rebelled against by betraying and murdering a king appointed to rule God’s people? It was Zimri’s dark spirit that also pushed him to kill himself.
      

            Judas:  Matt 27:5; Acts 1:18:  Whether Judas hanged himself or jumped off a cliff, he took his own life.  Before that, he was already under demonic influence because he was stealing money from the ministry.  Judas had a spirit of darkness operating in his life.Demons got more control over his mind as he continued in his sin to the point where he betrayed the only begotten Son of God, Jesus, after which he was moved to take his own life out of unbearable guilt that was also brought on by demons.  That’s the way demons operate; once there is a crack in the hedge of one’s life, if they don’t genuinely repent of sin, the crack gets wider and wider – the life of the individual becomes darker and darker – doing things they never thought they would do.  Judas, a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, died in his sins but does that make him to forever be in the presence of the Lord because he was an apostle?  No.  Jesus even said that it would have been better if he’d never been born and that’s not said about someone going into eternal happiness. 
      
            Suicide is not an honorable way to die; it’s murder – self-murder, and all the biblical cases of suicide with the exception of Samson, had spirits of darkness – evil spirits running their lives as a result of unrepented sin.  The Biblical suicidals were unrepentant of their sin, secret or not, and darkness took over their minds – over their lives. It holds true for today’s so-called Christians who commit suicide.  Dear Church, because you didn’t see sin in the life of a Christian who committed suicide, it does not mean it wasn’t there.  You don’t know the “secrets” in the heart of the victim because you are not God.          

Mental Illness And Darkness

 

            The thought of suicide begins in the mind. Demons always begin their work in the minds of human beings.  The mind is the battleground for decision-making, respecting spiritual life over spiritual death, and physical life over physical death.  All human beings are held accountable for their choices in life over death, or death over life.  Once the powers of darkness, or demons have the mind, they pretty much have the person until their spiritual deliverance, should it take place.  Humans open the door to their minds for unrelenting and demanding demons to enter in by both the kind of life they live and by the way they handle life’s hardships.  Demons are indefatigable – they never tire and neither do they have mercy on anyone, and will hound the individual until they breakdown – breakdown as in mental incapableness. The initial objective of demons is to rid a person’s mind of truth; blind the mind to truth – influence the mind, and passive or nominal Christians are very vulnerable; they can easily fall into the trap set for them, and often times do.   
 

            Concerning a lady with emotional problems who committed suicide, the question was asked of Reverend Billy Graham whether she lost her salvation or not. Billy Graham’s answer was “Suicide is always a tragedy—but in itself it is not the unpardonable sin. The only sin God cannot pardon is the sin of rejecting Him. God knew your cousin's heart, and He also knows that mental illness sometimes clouds a person's judgment so much that they aren't fully responsible for their actions”  (My Answer by Billy Graham.  Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Retrieved Dec 10, 2008. www.billygraham.org/MyAnswer_Article.asp?ArticleID=1861). Reverend Billy Graham, a Southern Baptist, is of the “eternal security” school of thought, so quite naturally suicide by a Christian is not a damning sin.  Billy Graham went even further to assure that suicide by Christians is not damning because the so-called Christian’s heart is right even though the mind is crazed (mentally ill, irrational, lunatic).  
 

            True, God knows a person’s heart (spirit) and the heart should be in sync with the person’s soul (mind, will, emotions) for there is no separating a person’s heart from the condition of the person’s mind one or the other rules.  If darkness, that is referred to as mental illness in the secular world is the clouding of a person’s mind or judgment, that person is still responsible for their actions, expressly suicide. The spirit is willing but the flesh and the soul realm are weak, and the only way to synchronize the heart, soul, and flesh so that they surrender to the heart/spirit, is with a dedicated and strong relationship with God and daily feed on His Word, the Bible, resulting in the willing spirit making both the soul and fleshly realms of the person subject to righteous and holy living. With that said, the onus of mental illness is on the individual because somewhere along the road of life, that person was not walking fully with the Lord and chose something else for their life outside of God’s will for them, and choosing other than God’s will is to give in to darkness.
 

            Dear Church, Jesus came to set people free from the powers of darkness that hinder them from serving God with their whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength.  If a person doesn’t serve God, then their master is Satan.  To ward-off that, Jesus healed (delivered) lunatics – the mentally ill – tormented and demon possessed people (Matthew 4:24).  Remember the man whose son was lunatic – vexed by demons in Matthew 17:15?  Jesus rebuked the devil operating in the child’s life. The moral of that is that Christians should not be crazed, and if they are, they are still accountable to God for how they got that way, and in the meantime, the Church should pray deliverance over them until the demons are expelled. (That is indicative of the “great works” Believers should be doing while on earth but don’t, and instead change the Gospel so that people are not responsible for living the kind of  holy life that guards their minds from demons getting control over them.)

 

Eternal Security Doctrine And Suicidals

 

            Not only do times and people change but so do the beliefs and teachings in the Church, even though God’s Word never changes.  When Church beliefs and teachings change in opposition to God’s Word, the law, those beliefs are a false teachings and that’s not God. Take the sixth commandment for instance, THOU SHALT NOT KILL (Exodus 20:13). It is an across-the-board prohibition against killing anyone outside of the parameters of God’s designated judgments for riding the earth of evil through His four sore or stinging judgments in Ezekiel 14:21 (the sword or war; famine; the noisome beast; and pestilence). That single passage also condemns suicide as well. So for anyone to be killed (suicide included) by means other than the sore judgments of God, it’s murder, and is sin.  Suicide is taking life outside of God’s justifiable four death judgments.
 

Apostle Paul wrote:     
           
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37-39).   
 

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).   
 

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5).   
 

According to the eternal security teaching, those three verses of Scripture are saying that when you receive salvation it’s a free, underserved, unmerited permanent gift from God to good-for-nothing human beings who had nothing to do for it.  Such salvation as that guarantees eternal happiness upon death, regardless of a person dying in sin, because according to that teaching nothing can separate them from God. But, Church, what about the “reward and consequences” Gospel Jesus preached to Believers (not the world)?

 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (John 5:24).

 

By believing in Jesus, Christians do have everlasting life but that’s only if they walk upright (obediently) before Him all the days of their life and don’t die in their sin.  Christians must at all times feast on the bread of life, Jesus, and at all times feasting on Jesus, Christians are the sheep who hear His voice and to whom He gives eternal life that they won’t perish nor be plucked from His hand (John 10:27-29).  As for His sheep not being plucked from His hand, well, they don’t get plucked from His hand but through sin, they go willingly from His hand into the hand of the enemy. Suicide victims have gone willingly into the hands of the other god via sin.  

There are many untruths about the suicide victim that are spun from the eternal security teaching.    
      
            Untruth 1:  Some Christians believe that 2 Corinthians 5:21 means Jesus Christ took the punishment for all sins of mankind and for that reason, the person who commits suicide is not held accountable being that all sins (past, present, future), including suicide, as a consequence is covered by Jesus. So, Christians who commit suicide are still granted eternal happiness.  Bear in mind, Paul wrote a lot of things that are not parallel to Jesus’ teachings and this 2 Corinthians 5:21 is one of them.(Rewards and consequences Jesus spoke of during His ministry and suicide’s consequence is eternal damnation.)

            Untruth 2:  Some Christians believe that Christians should not concern themselves with suicidals going to heaven or hell because it’s left up to God.  Granted, it is left up to God, but Christians should be concerned about whether Christians who commit suicide have eternal happiness forever in the presence of The Lord so that they can forewarn them of what awaits them if they follow through and possibly pray deliverance over them if afforded the opportunity.   
 

Untruth 3:  It is said that we all die with some unconfessed sin and suicide is one of them.  That likely is true but, Christians are supposed to be in the habit of confessing sin throughout each and every day as they reflect back on their behavior, and especially before they go into prayer before God.  If Christians are truly worshipers of God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23), their conscience will be jolted at the least unkind act or immoral act thought upon and/or committed. If repenting of sin throughout the day is not done by True Christians, how do they enter into the spirit to communicate with the Lord?  They don’t. They are not walking in the spirit and certainly not living a life of holiness. Christians should never die with unconfessed sin on them because it is not the kind of life they should be living.

            Untruth 4:    If at some time the suicide victim accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who paid their debt of sin, and they accepted Him into their life, then they are forgiven for self-murder.  That is just not true. It goes back to “once saved, always saved” – eternal security. The only way one is forgiven is to ask for forgiveness.

Untruth 5:  It is said that if the suicide victim doesn’t know that to commit suicide is a sin, God is merciful toward them.  What about the gospel going into all the corners of the earth? If people don’t know that suicide is breaking God’s Sixth Commandment, it’s because they have refused to hear and live the Gospel Whose fault is it that they didn’t purposely break God’s Sixth Commandment because they didn’t know any better? It is their fault that they rejected the Word of God for something else. Knowing or not knowing that suicide is a sin before committing it does not mean that God is going to spare that person of immediate and direct transport to hell.  It’s not God’s fault that the person didn’t bother learning what He says about self-murder, which means the person clearly was not walking with God or never had a real relationship with Him.
 

Untruth 6:  It is said that nothing in a person’s past, present, or future can sever their relationship with God.  That too is a false teaching extrapolated from Apostle Paul’s epistles.  No one is assured salvation.  What about Jesus and His rewards and consequences teachings?  
 

            Based on Romans 8:32, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things”? Eternal security believers have no doubt that the Lord will welcome to His kingdom the person who has committed suicide based on what Apostle Paul taught, not Jesus.  Pardon, but God giving all things is the reward component of salvation when the Christian lives in obedience to His Word – His Commandments – including the Sixth Commandment.   God’s Word says do not kill, for to kill is sin and sin is death. A genuinely true Believer in Jesus Christ would never ever commit suicide much less have thoughts about it.        

A One-Way Ticket 
   

             Death is the beginning of life everlasting either in hell or forever in the presence of the Lord, but suicide is a one-way ticket to hell.   Those unable to cope with life’s hardships tend to feel there is absolutely no way out and take their own life because it’s the easy way out, so they think. Suicide is not an easy way out; it’s a one-way ticket to hell.  It is a type of unpardonable sin and is so because once the act is executed, it’s too late for the victim to repent as the last breath is drawn. Granted, it may be the person’s body but to remove the breath of life from it is not their prerogative.   
 
            God does not forgive any sin without being sincerely asked by penitents.  If the suicide victim dies while committing the act of suicide, how can the victim ask forgiveness in order for God to forgive their sin?  The victim is not afforded the opportunity to repent at death nor after death. Death is it; and then the judgment. It is true that Jesus died for all of our sins but the sins must be confessed in order to be forgiven and the suicide victim has no opportunity to confess.  (After all, it’s not like they have to sacrifice an unblemished lamb on an altar. Jesus was the unblemished sacrificial lamb once and for all who will believe.)    

            From the very beginning (Genesis 9:3-6) there has been punishment for taking the life of a human being by hands other than God’s.  Life is in the blood whether human or animal, and while God allows the killing of animals for human consumption, He says the blood (life) of a human He will require, or the killer is held accountable to Him for murder.  If God doesn’t orchestrate the death of a human through His four sore judgments, it’s murder and no one has the right to take human life, be it “self” or someone else.  It was the death penalty for humans murdering another in Exodus 21:12-15 and even death for animals killing a human in Exodus 21:28. (This day and time should a bear kill a human, the national park service finds the bear and puts him to death.) There is a price to be paid for murder. Only the Lord has power over all flesh: “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive” (1 Samuel 2:6), not a human, but only God.   
 

            A gentleman on Christian television who had lost his dear brother through suicide stated that it’s the mind that makes people commit suicide, and because their spirit loves God, the victim goes to Heaven. Yes, it is the mind that drives the person commit suicide – the dark demonic cloud that first hovered over the victim and then controlled the victim’s mind. The gentleman noticeably was trying to have peace of mind about where his brother was spending eternity while ignoring the fact that his brother committed murder – self-murder.  If his brother’s spirit loved God so much, his brother’s mind (soul realm) would have been subject to his spirit and his flesh realm never would have carried out the suicide.  But as it was, at the command of his brother’s mind, his brother’s flesh won the battle for his life.  His brother’s spirit was nowhere in the picture because his spirit, a long time before, was out of sync with his mind when the powers of darkness took over his life due to sin.  If the spirit, alone, isn’t dictating what the person is doing according to God’s will, then the person is in sin when committing the act of self-murder and sin is not rewarded with eternal happiness.   

            No amount of suffering, torment, or mental anguish brought on by the powers of darkness should push anyone, let alone a so-called Christian, to commit suicide. A person choosing to take their own life rather than suffer is one totally given over to darkness and ultimately succumbs to self-murder – suicide. 

 

The suicide may not want to destroy the life given by God.  He may want to destroy the life given by Satan, the life given over to the power of sin.  He desires to destroy the life which leads to death.  It is the life given by God which he has lost and hopes to regain (Neale, Robert E. “The Art Of Dying.” Harper & Row, New York, 1973, p 65).      

Physical death by the ungodly act of suicide can never restore the victim to a godly life. It’s too late. No one regains a godly life after committing suicide on account of the only reward for suicide is eternal damnation.

 

(NOTE: Darkness of the mind in children below the age of reasoning generally occurs through environmental transference of demon spirits.)