SUICIDE: Worse than the Worst Option

When we have nothing at all to look forward to in life, have no purpose in life, and are utterly hopeless in life, we can do one of two things. We can take our life, or we can give our life over, to the One who gave it to us, and allow Him to help. The worst things for a person to resort to when they have come become despondent and full of despair, are comforters like drugs, alcohol, or any other addictive substitute. False and cheap comforters these are, because they deaden past memory and present pain, while opening the door in the future for all of it to come back with a vengeance. But there is something that’s worse than these the worst options, and that is suicide. Suicide, simply put, is worse than the worst option for a hopeless person­. It is the grandest scheme of the Enemy, the biggest lie ever told, the most sinister of all deception, and if followed through with, it is the most irredeemable of all evils, for after it there is no hope whatsoever, there is no light, only abysmal darkness forever and ever, and ever.

Such is the plight path of Europe now: it is plunging into abysmal darkness, and oh who can save them—their inept governments, proliferating Islam, perhaps the dead Church? A few European countries are illustrative of this hopelessness. Luxembourg and the Netherlands have legalized euthanasia for children. And now Belgium has not only legalized it, but has lifted all age restrictions as well. So a child who does not have the right to drive a car till of legal age, has the right to decide that life is not worth living?—Absurd, and diabolical! The same has now happened in the USA, across various states, very notably, California, where they have come up with their own criteria for judging that a person has come to the end of their life, and are therefore free to choose to “end” it. (https://www.uclahealth.org/patients-families/support-information/advance-directive/introduction-california-end-life-option-act).

Call it euthanasia, or call it “mercy-killing” if you like, but in all fairness, what has been legalized is suicide itself. Suicide, by very definition, is the act of taking one’s own life because one no longer has the hope to go on living. While suicide is the act, euthanasia is simply the legalization of the act—the legalization of taking one’s life, so that the hopeless person now has the support of the government, of family, of friends, and of ideologues. Now they can feel good about it! And I ask, why don’t all these legislators in the life of this person support them in the depths of despair and raise them up in life, instead of pushing them into the pit of hell? Euthanasia is the human giving the “right” to another human to take from himself, or herself, the gift of life that has been bestowed on them by God, the Creator.

From the Bible, two people who lived in history come to mind when we speak of suicide. First, is King Saul, first monarch of Israel. He started off seemingly well. Then pride got the better of him, and he stepped outside the boundaries of his royal office when he assumed the office of the priest, which was not his to take. This megalomania degenerated into demonic jealousy, for the young David, and then descended into sheer desperation when Saul began to turn to witches for advice, doing the very thing he had outlawed in the nation. Then one day in battle, he was hit by a Philistine arrow. Wanting not to be shamed later by the Philistines, he asks his armourbearer to kill him with a sword. The armor-bearer refuses, and Saul in utter hopelessness, turns to suicide—he takes a sword, positions it, and falls upon it.

Then I think of Judas Iscariot, the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. For three and a half years he was in the company of the very embodiment of hope. He saw Jesus, heard him, was touched by him. And yet, this man, for a mere thirty pieces of silver, thought he could buy himself more hope than Jesus could offer him? How disappointed he was to find that money could not satisfy. How filled with regret he was that he had rejected Jesus—the One who created his life here on earth, and could give him life beyond this earthly existence. It is interesting to note that Judas hangs himself—commits suicide—just a few hours before Jesus is going to give up His own life on the cross, and rise again three days later, so that Judas might have had, and the likes of Judas might surely have, the hope of eternal life.

What goes through the mind of a person who is suicidal? He is hopeless and without any purpose in life whatsoever. His life has become meaningless. Perhaps her friends and family have betrayed or rejected her or she perceives, wrongly so, that no one loves her. The future looks bleak. Success and the dream of family and vocation have evaporated. These are possible scenarios in the mind of a person who is suicidal. But unbeknownst to the victim, the dark fog of lies has engulfed them, and so in their mind and heart, they cannot feel and recognize God’s truth. God’s presence is conspicuously absent to them, or maybe inaccessible, or non-existent, or better yet, they don’t care for Him.

But . . . When a person has reached the end of the proverbial rope, simply put, there is still hope! There is always hope in the truth. Always. It is never too late for the hope that’s found in truth. You do not have to take your life. It is the option that is worse than the worst of options when you are hopeless. It is the coward’s way out, not the government’s blessing of free choice. To choose suicide is not to cut short your life, but to magnify your misery, and to expedite your journey into the dark unknown. At the point of suicide, you don’t know what lies beyond you taking your life. How can you know what the future holds when you are so hopeless? Why don’t you first find out what you are diving into, before you attempt plunging headlong into an abyss you can never come out of? There is a better option. In fact, it is the only option that can grant you hope. Allow me to give you, succinctly, the truth behind the hope.

Jesus came to earth to experience the lowest of lows of human existence. He knew all of human infirmity, frailty, and suffering, yet He remained above it, because He was not only man, but God in the flesh. He knew what it is to be tempted and tried with sin and guilt and shame, yet he remained sinless. He knew what it felt like to be rejected by friends and family, yet He hoped in God, His Father. And after experiencing all this throughout his brief 33 year life, Jesus experienced the most hopeless of human conditions—death itself. Yes, Jesus died. But He died so that you and I could live. Jesus did not stay dead. He defeated death and was the first to experience the most hopeful of human conditions—eternal life beyond death. You don’t have to take your life and die. But to live­ in this life and beyond—I mean to really live—you do have to give your life to the One who died and rose again from the dead.

If you have come to the end of all hope, God says to you today what He said to the ancient prophet Jeremiah, “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Then we are further assured when God, the Creator of life, says to us all through His Son Jesus Christ, “. . . because I live, you will live also.” - John 14:19

Kenny Damara, 2014