Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Shakespeare said, "Against self-slaughter there is a prohibition so divine that cravens my weak hand."

He was expressing the attitude of the vast majority towards suicide.

We did not find that prohibition in either the Old Testament or the New Testament.

The whole Bible does oppose the taking of one's life even if there is no explicit prohibition.

Life is sacred; God is its author; we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice; we are to do all that we do to the glory of God.

No one can doubt that self-destruction is sinful, and opposed to the whole plan of God.

So obvious is this truth that it has been recognized to be evil by the majority of non-Christians.

Pythagorus and Plato, the ancient Greek philosophers, condemned it "on the ground that we are all soldiers of God, stationed at appointed posts of duty, which it is rebellion against our maker to desert."

Aristotle and Greek legislators condemned it as abandonment of duty to the state.

The ancient poets, like Lucretius the Roman, condemned it as cowardice.

Buddhism and Islam condemn it.

Practically all pagans have recognized it to be a sin.

The rare exception is the Stoics whose goal of life was to avoid trouble and pain.

If all did not go right, they encouraged suicide as a solution.

Zeno the founder hanged himself when he broke his finger, and the famous poet that Paul quotes in Acts 17:28, Cleanthes, starved himself to death because his gums were sore.

Apart from these we have the whole weight of the moral conscience of heathenism again suicide.

That it is a sin we cannot doubt, and that it is a grave sin we cannot question, but what we want to do is to get some answers to some very important questions related to suicide.

These may be only idle speculation for some, but there are Christians in our world who would feel them to be desperately relevant, and the day may come when American Christians will also feel this.

Now is the time to ask the questions, and prepare ourselves for proper attitudes and understanding.

The first question is this:

I. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A CHRISTIAN TO TAKE HIS OWN LIFE?

If we come to this question with preconceived notions, we will, of course, already have an answer before we examine the evidence.

There is only one preconceived idea we can have, however, and that is that it is sin, and a grave sin at least as bad as murder.

This means that we are seeking to determine if a Christian can do the worse kinds of sin.

Jesus implied it was possible when He gave the Sermon on the Mount.

He said that it was not only murder when you kill, but it was also murder when you are angry without a cause, and so full of hate that you call a brother a fool.

This puts the believer in grave danger.

This becomes meaningless if it is not possible for the believer to do such evil.

The whole New Testament implies by its moral standard and prohibitions that it is possible for a believer to commit any of the sins forbidden by the ten commandments.

There is no basis for saying that the sin of suicide is impossible for the believer.

It is morally impossible, just as stealing, adultery, lying, and covetousness.

What does history tell us.

The question was debated in the early church.

One of the big questions was this: Could a Christian woman take her own life in times of persecution to escape the dishonor she would suffer by brute soldiers, who would rape her before she was killed?

Eusebius, the church historian, Chrysostom, the golden mouth preacher, and Jerome, the Bible translator, all favored it as the lesser of two evils.

Augustine condemned it, however, and later church councils did also.

They passed a law refusing church burial to anyone who did so.

The debate arose out of life's battles where women did take their lives to escape the awful fate awaiting them.

Even Augustine allowed exceptions, since some were called martyrs and made saints.

The modern Catholic Encyclopedia says this question is still open for debate.

What is not debatable is the fact that true Christians did take their own lives.

In more modern times we find that after the Reformation the question arises again.

There was no problem with suicide in the so-called dark ages.

It became a universal problem only since the Enlightenment.

In Tirospol, Russia in 1897, 28 persons buried themselves alive to escape the census which they felt was evil and against God's will.

In 1666 Russian Zealots looked for the antichrist to come so soon that they urged Christians to escape him by suicide and entering into heaven.

Whole communities hailed with enthusiasm this gospel of death, and they put it into practice.

Such fanaticism characterized the Anabaptist also.

They claimed they were setting up the kingdom of God, and they brought destruction on themselves when they tried to rebel and make society socialistic.

Luther and his princes went to war and killed over 100,000 because of this fanaticism.

This was not suicide in the same sense as it was with the Russians, but it was close to it in terms of the folly of it all, and in terms of getting Christian people so fired up over fanatical ideas that they were willing to die for some man made scheme.

The purpose of sharing this history is to show that God's children can, and have, been victims of false and fanatical leadership, and have even taken their own lives as a result.

Martyrdom was so prized at one time that Christians fought to be killed.

Some early Christians deliberately threw themselves to their death under the delusion that a violent death gained merit.

Leslie T. Lyall in his book Come Wind Come Weather gives an account of evangelical reactions to the Communist takeover in China.

Christian leaders were disgraced and accused by other Christians of crimes and sins.

He reports that people of evangelical persuasion were driven insane, and a number of them committed suicide.

These he mentions were leaders and not just new Christians.

They were people like T. H. Sun who was editor of the Christian Farmer.

Some were pastors, and one was archdeacon James Fu who was accused by his own sons.

How are we to look at this? First we must recognize the differences in cultures.

To be accused by ones own family and friends, and have public demonstrations, and have it put in the paper was, for an oriental mind, a burden beyond us to comprehend.

The saving face attitude is a part of the Christian life in the orient, and this type of thing could crush the heart of even the strongest.

It will not do to say that maybe none of them were true Christians.

That could very well be, but it begs the whole question, and ignores the testimony of their lives.

Since there is no basis for believing that it is impossible for a Christian to take their own life, it is better to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The Bible makes it clear that the most godly of men can develop all the symptoms of loneliness and despair that lead to suicide.

Moses who was tired and discouraged cried out to God in Num.

11, "The load is far to heavy!

If you are going to treat me like this, please kill me right now; it will be a kindness.

Let me out of this impossible situation."

Moses spoke with the mind that fits the majority of people who commit suicide.

Then there is Elijah who was emotionally and physically exhausted in his battle with Jezebel.

He cries out to God in I Kings 19, "I've had enough.

Take away my life.

I've got to die sometime, and it might as well be now."

Keep in mind, we are not looking at the words of new believers who could not take the pressure.

These were pros, and the cream of the crop of God's best men.

Job and Jeremiah both cursed the day of their birth they fell so low in depression.

What about the prophet Jonah who was so embarrassed because God in His mercy did not destroy Nineveh after He preached that He would.

He cried out to God in despair in Jonah 4, "Please kill me Lord: I'd rather be dead than alive."

Life was unbearable, and that is precisely where the suicide is when he takes his life.

From the time you ate breakfast this morning until the time you eat breakfast tomorrow one thousand people will have killed themselves on this planet.

And not a day goes by but that some of that thousand are born again Christians.

Christian doctors, psychiatrists, and those working with suicide prevention centers as well as pastors know this to be true.

I have counseled a number of Christians who were suicidal.

Billy Graham has acknowledged that Christians can so fall under the deceptive power of Satan that they can be enticed into suicide.

Duane Peterson who headed the Jesus People Organization published many letters from Christians who attempted or succeeded in suicide.

Leslie Weatherhead, the well known preacher and author in England writes, "When Captain Oates-a valued colleague of Captain Scott in his epic journey to the South Pole-found that frost-bite in his feet was holding up his companions, he walked out into the blizzard to lay down his own life and was rightly labeled, "A very gallant gentleman."

No one would criticize a man who, after a shipwreck, leapt to certain death in a stormy sea because a raft containing women and children was already over filled."

What he is pointing out is that there are circumstances in which the taking of one's life is an act of heroism.

You might think it is dangerous to make these facts known, and ask, won't this encourage Christians to take their own life?

Not at all.

The reason the Bible does not hide the deep negative emotions of the best of God's people is because God knows that the key to conquering Satan's temptation to suicide is the freedom to share your burden and be accepted.

No Christian will ever be defeated by the devil or depression who can feel free to share their despair without fear of rejection.

Christians need to know they can commit suicide and will if they refuse to use the weapons God has given to outwit the enemy.

If I fell and sprained my back I would not hesitate to share with you about the pain, and get your encouragement and prayer.

But if I fell into depression and life became a dark pit with no light penetrating into my gloom, I may try to hide that from you, and in so doing be playing right into Satan's hands.

If I could treat my mental injuries as I do my physical injuries, and be honest and open about them, I would discover they were often easier to heal than the physical ones.