SUICIDE

My experience with depressed people is that when they have suffered from long periods of depression and begin to talk about suicide, we had better pay attention.

Curtis C. Thomas

Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 155. Used by Permission.

No man must let the tenant out of the tenement till God the landlord calls for it.

Thomas Adams

Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 154. Used by Permission.

No creature but man willingly kills itself.

Thomas Watson

Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 154. Used by Permission.

Suicide is pursued out of [the] principle of self-love. In the midst of a feeling of utter meaningless and hopelessness and numbness of depression the soul says: “It can't get any worse than this. So even if I don’t know what I will gain through death, I do know what I will escape.” And so suicide is an attempt to escape the intolerable. It is an act of self-love.

John Piper

Loving God as Yourself – Part 2, May 7, 1995, www.DesiringGod.org. Used by Permission.

Those who choose suicide (for whatever reason) should remember that death is not the end, but a doorway into an eternal existence. Sad to say, some who find the pain of dying intolerable will awaken in a realm that is even more terrible than earth could ever be. We should welcome death from the hand of God, but not force the hand that brings it.

Erwin Lutzer

Those who end their own lives die as failures; their last act was murder.

Erwin Lutzer

1. There are four male suicides for every one female; however, at least twice as many females as males attempt suicide.

2. Sixty percent of all people who commit suicide kill themselves with guns.

3. Guns are now used in more suicides than homicides.

4. Women are more likely to use drugs or poison than violent means; men are more inclined to use a quick, violent means of suicide such as a gun or hanging.

5. 500,000 Americans survive suicide attempts each year.

6. Of those who commit suicide, only 25% are determined to have been mentally ill.

7. Of those who commit suicide, 80% warned someone that they were contemplating doing so.

8. The highest suicide rates are among people ages 35-49 and people 65 and over.

9. The suicide rate on American Indian reservations is 5 times the national average.

Author Unknown

Statistics used in Sam Storms, Suicide, www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Original source: Associated Press, Public Health Service.

The Bible simply records the occurrences of six suicides without making a moral evaluation: The case of Abimelech in Judges 9:50-57; the case of Samson in Judges 16:28-30 (although some are not convinced this is suicide in the strict sense of the term); Saul and his armor-bearer in 1 Samuel 31:1-6; 2 Samuel 1:1-15; 1 Chron. 10:1-13; Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 17:23; Zimri in1 Kings 16:18-19; and Judas Iscariot in Matthew 27:5. It is worth noting that in each of these cases the suicide is the end to a life that did not (at least in its latter stages) meet with God’s approval. Is there any significance in the fact that the only recorded instances of suicide in the Bible are of those in moral and spiritual rebellion against God?

Sam Storms
Suicide, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Used by Permission.

Is suicide the unpardonable sin? People have often taken this view because suicide leaves no room for repentance; a person enters eternity with unconfessed and therefore unforgiven sin. But:

1. Nowhere does the Bible say that suicide is an unforgiveable or unpardonable sin.

2. The Bible teaches that all sin, past, present, and future, is forgiven through faith in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Eternal destiny is sealed and set at the moment of justifying faith. Our depth of intimacy, fellowship and joy is certainly affected adversely when we fail to confess and repent of daily sin. But our eternal destiny has already and forever been determined. We must recognize the distinction between the eternal forgiveness of the guilt of sin that is ours the moment we embrace Jesus in faith, and that temporal forgiveness of sin we receive on a daily basis that enables us to experience the happiness of intimacy with the Father.

3. Numerous instances of sudden death may bring a Christian into eternity before he/she had opportunity to confess and repent. Common sense reveals that many, if not most, of us will die with unrepented sins.

Sam Storms
Suicide, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Used by Permission.

Is suicide ever morally permissible?

1. What moral judgment do we make in the case of the soldier who falls on a live grenade to save the life of his friend?

2. What moral judgment do we make in the case of the destitute mother who stops eating what little food remains in order that her child may live?

3. What moral judgment do we make in the case of the POW who swallows a cyanide capsule, knowing that otherwise he will be brainwashed and tortured into divulging crucial information that will be used to the detriment and perhaps death of his countrymen?

4. What moral judgment do we make in the case of the husband with a lengthy terminal illness who takes his own life lest his medical expenses drain the meager financial resources on which his aged wife must depend for her future welfare?

5. What moral judgment do we make…of a soldier trapped in a burning tank from which there is no hope of escape. Is it morally permissible for him to end his life with a gunshot to the head rather than to die in agony in that fiery inferno?

6. What about the Christian in the third century who is given a choice: either deny Jesus or be thrown to the lions? By refusing to deny Jesus, the believer chooses a course of action that she knows will result in her death.

7. What about the Jehovah’s Witness who is accidentally shot by a robber and, because of religious convictions, refuses the blood transfusion necessary to save her life? She dies because of a deliberate choice on her part.

Sam Storms
Excerpted from: Suicide, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Used by Permission.