Suicide
A Different Christian Perspective
by Curtis Bond BS. MA.

The Lord has placed on my heart the need to minister to those that are struggling in their mind.  These people are what I call the silently struggling.  Their numbers are more than most people can imagine and their identity is likely to stay secreted.  Why? There is a name for these people; they are often referred to as the mentally-ill.  This is a societal label that stigmatizes people and makes those who are struggling in their mind feel less than normal. As a pastor and one who holds degrees in psychology and sociology—human behavior—and who has taught human behavior in college, and who has hands-on experience working with people who are struggling in their mind, I have seen the effects these social labels have on people, Being labeled ‘mentally-ill” can make a person feel inadequate and shun away from building healthy social relationships. Ask any mental health therapist and he/she will tell you that some people will drive a hundred miles to visit a therapist just to thwart people from finding out they are seeing a psychiatrist.  It’s no wonder then that people hide any type of mental affliction.  Due to this societal label and the negative connotation the mental illness label has, I hesitate to use the term mentally-ill.  

People who are depressed, grieving over a loss in their life, extremely anxious, paranoid, addicted to various substances and the list goes on and on are not deranged, or nuts, crazy or insane—insanity is a legal term not a medical term. They have not let God down, neither have they demonstrated a lack of faith, neither has the devil 'got-a-hold-of-them'.  We need to understand and remind ourselves that the human brain is a very complex organ. Science has discovered that the brain must maintain a delicate balance of sodium, potassium, dopamine, serotonin and various other substances called neurotransmitters in order for the brain to function properly.  If these neurotransmitters get out of balance various maladies can occur such as depression, anxiety, panic, and so forth.  The good news is there is help.

Prayer and faith are paramount whether one is ill in body or mind.  Faith doesn’t mean to say I’ll leave it in God’s hands and it’ll go away.  Most people wouldn’t hesitate to seek medical help if their arm was broken.  Not only would they pray but they would also seek a doctor’s help.  Most of us acknowledge God heals in many ways—naturally and supernaturally.  God is sovereign!  Then why do people hesitate to seek help for their mind?  Again the answer is usually they don’t want to be labeled “nuts” or less than normal, or a person that lacks faith in God.  This is the farthest thing from the truth.  Unfortunately people can be cruel to one another.  Most of us have heard people make light of someone else’s mental suffering or condition.  This is where I believe Satan works: to keep people from seeking help.  Satan tries to convince one to suffer in silence because you don’t want to let God down or let people find out your “nuts”: to suffer in silence because no one would understand what you are going through or feeling anyway.  This is a lie straight from the pits of hell! 

As the church of the living of God we should be keenly aware of God’s Love and Grace and not pass judgment on someone.  Regardless of how someone is feeling, God is there.  The beauty of the gospels is that  Jesus met people's grief, loss, suffering, pain, sickness, sin, and even death where they were living.  Christ didn't brush it aside but acknowledged it and was there to share sorrow and grief with them (Isaiah 53).  All of us have been called to the ministry of reconciliation.  Not a ministry of judgment but a ministry of good news telling all people and nations that God loves them and is reaching out to them today; God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).   The only way we can minister to these people is they have to come to us. As previously stated they are hidden and they are going to stay hidden. They have to see Christ in us and feel they can confide in us without fear of being exposed, or judged, or made light of, or brushed away.  In short we have to develop the attitude, "I AM MY BROTHER’S KEEPER." 

I recently officiated a memorial service for a dear minister friend of mine who suddenly unexpectedly, without warning, committed suicide.  Let me state this as plainly as can be: SUICIDE IS NOT A GOOD WAY OUT OF ONE'S PROBLEMS AND SUFFERING.  IT IS A VERY DESTRUCTIVE SELFISH  ACT THAT HAS DIRE ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES.  God is a God of Grace and Life and that is why he sent Christ Jesus into the world (John 10:10).  Let us always affirm the supreme ideal that life is sacred.  No matter how low, depressed, angry, or despondent one feels today, joy will return, laughter will come back,  and feelings of faith and contentment in God will be restored. God is there with you as you walk through the fire (Psalm 23 & Isaiah 43:2).

At the funeral I said there are things that we can all do in memory of Albert*. One is to reach out to those who are struggling and hurting: To ask God to lead us to those who are silently struggling.  Albert was severely depressed.  I am not making excuses to try and justify Albert's suicide, I am just stating the facts as I know them.  Depression is a silent killer.  Suicide knows no boundaries. It does not discriminate by age, race, sex, social status, and so on.  No one is exempt from this insidious silent monster.  Most people at one time or another in their life--usually during times of severe stress or trials--has thought 'I wish I were dead' or some type of death wish. 

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S..  Research on suicide in the United States reveals that over 700,000 people attempt suicide every year and over 200,00 succeed. To tell someone who seems sad or blue to get a hold of themselves, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, shows a lack of spiritual understanding and discernment. 

I am asking all of us to pray and ask God to help us/you be sensitive to the silent cry: God knows who they are and where they are.  God won’t send Job’s comforters to someone that is depressed or hurting in their mind but the devil will.  God wants to send someone who will bind up the brokenhearted, set the captive free, and share with them the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Will you let God use you?  Pray about it will you please?

If you know someone who has/is talking about suicide or incessantly talking about their death: TAKE THEM SERIOUS.  Most people do not want to commit suicide.  80% of people who attempt suicide give warning signals. Someone telling you they might kill themselves is giving you a silent cry for help.  They really want help. Don't just tell them "you don't want to do do that" or suicide is murder and God will get you.  Don't ask them if they are going to hurt themselves? This gives them a way out, and an opportunity to be evasive.

Ask them point-blank are they going to kill themselves, or shoot themselves, or overdose on pills or whatever.  Find out if they have a plan, the means, and the opportunity to carry out their act.  If they do have a plan, the means, and opportunity DO NOT leave them alone.   Get them to a hospital, call the police, intervene and DO SOMETHING.  AGAIN, If you think someone is going to harm themselves DO NOT leave them alone, take them serious.  Risk making them angry at you and straining a friendship/relationship.  Get them help immediately.  They will get over it!

And if YOU ARE a silent sufferer who is depressed, anxious, grieving, in the grips of despair, and so forth will you take a chance and reach out to God?   Will you seek out someone that you can confide in and let them minister to you?  Don’t keep fighting this battle by your self.  You don’t have to keep suffering in isolation and silence.  Share your burden with another: your pastor or rabbi, priest, friend, co-worker, someone who will listen and not judge but be the friend of God.  I for one am here for you and will do everything in my power to minister to you and keep whatever you commit to me confidential.  Sometimes it takes more than me and Jesus: It takes me and Jesus and a trusted friend.  Pray about it will you please? Will you let God help you? The great existentialist and theologian Paul Tillich said that it takes courage to live. Will you reach out in faith and muster the courage to live in Christ and seek help today?

Let someone help you...especially someone that loves you!  Matthew 5:41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

What follows is the text of a funeral I conducted recently for a minister friend of mine that committed suicide.  He left a wife and two children behind to sort out the pieces.   I will call him Albert.  His name has been changed to protect his family's privacy.

Romans 8
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 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.

Christians often think this walk is a walk of perfection. In one sense our walk is as the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 4 that God gave his church gifts and these gifts ARE FOR the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:

The apostle Paul is telling us that Christian Perfection is an ongoing process: AND perfection can only come through Christ.  Its only in Christ can we be perfect and perfected. It is only in Christ do we find completeness (Colossians 2:10). Jesus said that without me you can do nothing (John 15:51 am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.)

Albert* did not live a perfect life. But then neither are you and I living a perfect life. How many of us have fallen and stumbled since we have come to Christ?  But God does not call us to be perfect: he calls us to repentance. He calls us to salvation. He calls us to a life of service to him. He calls us to faith and to action to show love one for another.

I am not here to condemn or judge Albert's life, or his actions. I have no reservations today that he is in the arms of Jesus. He is in the hands of a just and living God.  A loving and forgiving God: Who forgives unto a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9). Who sent his son Jesus to not only die for me but for Albert and for you and for the entire world!

Albert was a lay minister and a good one. He enjoyed being a lay minister. We talked many times of him being in full-time ministry. He said that he would like to do that some day. Albert wasn't long winded as some of us are. But he could speak and speak right to the point. The church enjoyed hearing him speak.

Albert also gave of his self and of his substance more than many people know. He was generous to his church.  He told me on more than one occasion that he loved that church. As a matter of fact, I have come to realize that I am the last person he spoke with at length before his death. I am so glad that I can tell his family and his church family that they were on his mind. Albert shared with me his love for his church and his wife and children.  As he talked Albert gave no indication of what he was about to do.  If I only knew what was about to happen.  And I will spend the rest of my life asking the whys?

Again, I am not here to condemn or judge Albert. But I would be doing his memory and his love of God a disservice if I would not speak frankly to you today about suicide. Albert had an illness. He was sick in his mind. As many people are sick in their bodies, Albert was sick in his mind. More ill than you and I will ever know. He struggled against depression and his own shortcomings for God only knows how long. He took his life. Please don't judge Albert in this tragic act.

Traditional Christianity has taught that people who commit suicide have committed a moral sin!  They have murdered themselves and cannot find forgiveness and are lost to a devils hell!  This belief is based on the widely held idea that a person after committing suicide cannot ask for forgiveness because he/she is dead; but this belief of one automatically going to hell for committing suicide doesn’t square with scripture.

To automatically condemn Albert or anyone that has committed suicide to a devil’s hell is doing Albert and God's love and Word a disservice. We tend to judge people for their acts and behavior BUT God judges the hidden issues of the heart! (Psalms 44:21 & Psalm 51)  As Christians we are forbidden to judge one another (1 Corinthians 4:5 & Luke 6:37 & Romans 14:13).  Therefore if we are forbidden to judge one another, why then are people so quick to condemn someone to hell:  especially when someone commits a serious moral sin--such as suicide?   Humans are quick to condemn someone to hell but God isn't.  God wants no one to perish but that all would be saved (2 Peter 3:9).  No one on this earth knows Albert's heart any more than he/she knows mine! Therefore you and I have no license or scriptural authority to judge him.  Jesus said that ALL judgment belongs to him (Romans 2:16 & 2 Timothy 4:1 & John 5:22).   If you do not think God's love isn't big enough to forgive Albert for this tragic act of suicide and give him eternal life with Christ Jesus, then you don't understand the depths of God's mercy and love: 

Romans 11
32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
33 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Please hear me loud and clear! This is NOT A LICENSE to commit suicide.  Let no one misconstrue my words.  Suicide is not a good option out of the problems and cares of this life.  It is a bad choice.  Too many things are left behind undone and unsaid.  Especially if one is married and has a spouse and children as Albert did.  A person that commits suicide abandons their family, makes their spouse a widow, their children fatherless/motherless, and burdens the survivors to carry the guilt and shame of this terrible senseless, selfish, tragic act of self violence the rest of their lives. Consequently I can say without reservation that a person that commits suicide is sick in their mind!  To me it is quite obvious that he/she is not in/of their right mind. Somewhere somehow in their mind he/she sees the only way out of their pain and suffering is their death even if it means death at their own hand.

Again let me reiterate that humans are quick to judge ACTS or DEEDS while God judges the heart and intent of man (Psalms 44:21 & Hebrews 4:12). From a scriptural standpoint a person who commits suicide has cut themselves off from what their eternal reward in Christ could have been.  All believers will be rewarded for their works done in Christ name (1 Corinthians 3:14-15).  But a person who has met a premature death at their own hand has cut off their reward.   While I believe they can receive eternal life they will suffer loss of reward (1 Corinthians 3:15). 

There are three things that we can all do in memory of Albert. One is to be generous with our time and money. To use them for God's glory: To reach out to others and allow God to use us as he used Albert.

The second thing we can do is to reach out to those who are struggling and hurting: To ask God to lead us to those who are silently struggling. Depression is a silent killer. It is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S.. It knows no boundaries. It does not discriminate: No one is exempt from this insidious silent monster. To tell someone who seems sad or blue to get a hold of themselves, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, shows a lack of spiritual understanding and discernment.

And thirdly, remember Albert's family in your prayers:  Hold them up before God. I close with a reading from 2 Corinthians 5:

17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Albert  was in Christ, he was forgiven by God, and reconciled to God through Christ. Leave him in Christ's hands.  That’s where he belongs. That’s where he is right now.

—Pastor Curtis

Click for the RealAudio Sermon on Suicide I preached on 08/24/2003. 

Curtis Bond has been a minister and pastor for over 20 years. He is currently senior pastor of Midway Larger Parish United Methodist Church.

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