Suicide is Never the Answer

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Suicide is Never the Answer

article by Rainer Salomaa





A Canadian minister's perspective on the hopeless act of taking one's life. Can you spot a suicidal person?







Source: Photos.comA report by the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund singled out Canada as one of the countries that "head the league for suicide of young people." According to their figures, Canada's youth suicide rate of 15.8 per 100,000 people aged between fifteen and twenty-four is the world's third highest, exceeded only by the rates in Australia and Norway. In the United States, there is a reported average of sixteen teen suicides every day. Going back to Canada, statistics also reveal that among Canadians in general, more than 3,500 kill themselves every year, making the suicide rate 15.3 per 100,000. This is still well below Hungary which, according to 1992 figures, had the world's highest suicide rate of 40 suicides per 100,000. Still, although the North American rates are still cause for concern, few people like to talk about the crisis.



Suicide is the fifth most common cause of premature death among Canadians of all ages and the second leading cause of death, after accidents, among people under the age of thirty-five. Although experts estimate that one Canadian in twenty-five attempts suicide and close to eighty percent consider the idea sometime in their life, suicide statistics are often understated because many cases go unreported. Only about ten to fifteen percent of people who commit suicide leave a note. Family members often prefer to believe the cause of death as accidental rather than go through the agony of an investigation.



Doctor-assisted suicide has grabbed the attention of the Canadian news media in recent years, partly due to the case of Sue Rodriguez from British Columbia who sought to end her life and her suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. Her highly publicized case percolated up through the Canadian court system, championed by her Member of Parliament. Similar court challenges of doctor-assisted deaths have been heard in the United States as a result of Dr. Jack Kevorkian's assistance in the suicides of terminally ill patients. Dr. Kevorkian is a retired pathologist who has acknowledged taking part in forty-five suicides since 1990 and has been acquitted in three trials covering five deaths. Recently, the Vatican condemned Australia's world-first euthanasia law as a revolt against God and a crime against life. The condemnation came after Janet Mills, 52, who had a rare form of skin cancer, used a device driven by a laptop computer to deliver a fatal dose of drugs to end her life.



A Japanese book entitled, "The Complete Manual of Suicide" offered detailed, cartoon-illustrated, how-to instruction on methods of self- destruction ranging from pills to freezing. More graphic than an American release, "Final Exit," the Japanese best-seller even suggested "good" places to hang oneself and high buildings from which to leap.



A High Pressure World

We live in a high-pressure world that often puts people over the edge. Suicide is considered to be a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The road to self-destruction begins with depression and ends in the grave. One hallmark of depression is that it causes its victims to magnify their troubles out of all proportion. Problems that commonly lead to prolonged depression include job loss, financial trouble, bad health, divorce, the death of a loved one and family difficulties. Yet there is no complete answer why someone chooses to die to escape unbearable pain. For some, it might be stress. For some, it is brain chemistry. For others, it is a despair that rots the soul. Who knows why Vince Foster, Abbie Hoffman, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain and Ernest Hemingway all chose to end their lives at the peak of their respective careers? Did they consider themselves too successful to cry for help?



Suicide rates generally increase about two years after an economic slump when unemployment benefits and hope have both run out. Even seemingly small problems such as being passed over for a promotion, losing a pet or even the onset of winter can be enough to put some over the edge. Young people are particularly vulnerable as their emotions are very fragile and they put much emphasis on what others think about them. A break up with a girlfriend can be devastating and, for some, enough cause to end it all. Warning signs are usually given.



A partial list of warning signs includes:



Depression



Feelings of hopelessness



Extreme mood changes



Odd behavior



Giving away prized possessions



Loss of interest in work and hobbies



Isolation from friends and family



Loss of appetite or sexual desire



Disturbed sleep



Lack of interest in appearance



Here are some suggestions to anyone even contemplating suicide:



Talk to someone.



Ask for help.



Consider the consequences. It's not pretty.



Keep busy.



Get your mind off yourself.



Don't take yourself too seriously.



Deal with what is making you depressed.



Realize that time solves many problems.



Emphasize the positive.



Consider the worst case scenario.



Consider other options.



Pray for strength.



Seek help and comfort from God's Word.



Even though prayer and going to God's Word are the last items on the list, they are really the first and most important.



There have been lonely and depressed people throughout the centuries who have found hope and comfort from the Holy Scriptures. In those pages, we discover that God loves us so deeply that He gave us the life of His only begotten Son through His voluntary death so that we might live forever and not have to die in our sins. In the Bible we find meaning and purpose to life. We find keys to happiness and successful Christian living. We find lessons and can read about mistakes that others have made - things that we don't have to repeat in our own lives.



The Bible is a book that deals with the realities of life - including the topic of suicide. The New Testament mentions the suicide of Judas Iscariot who became filled with remorse after betraying Jesus (Matthew 27:3-5 [3] Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

[4] Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

[5] And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.





See All... and Acts 1:16-18 [16] Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.

[17] For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.

[18] Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.





See All...).



The Old Testament states that Ahithophel hanged himself after his advice was not followed (2 Samuel 17:23And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father.



See All...). Zimri's act of arson and suicide is detailed in 1 Kings 16:18And it came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him with fire, and died,



See All.... The death of Saul and his armourbearer by suicide is covered in 1 Samuel 31:4-6 [4] Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

[5] And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.

[6] So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.





See All.... Samson killed himself in a final act of destroying a large group of Philistines (Judges 16:29-30 [29] And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.

[30] And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.





See All...).



In their mental and physical anguish, both Job and Solomon contemplated suicide (Job 7:14-15 [14] Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

[15] So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.





See All...; Ecclesiastes 2:17-18 [17] Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

[18] Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.





See All...). Jonah wanted to die (Jonah 4:3Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.



See All...).



Back in the New Testament, the keeper of the prison in which Paul and Silas were held was about to kill himself when he thought that his prisoners had escaped (Acts 16:27And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.



See All...).



Satan tempted Christ through suicide (Matthew 4:6And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.



See All...). Christ responded by saying, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God'" (verse 7). It is too bad that nine Tanzanian pupils and a priest who tried to walk on the waters of Lake Victoria as a test of their faith did not heed Christ's statement. This incident, in which all ten drowned, received world wide coverage through an international news agency.



If you are depressed or considering suicide, please take time to read the book of Psalms. It gives hope and encouragement to help with life's difficulties. David, who wrote many of the Psalms, had more than his fair share of troubles but he successfully came through them. The Psalms will tell you, too, how you can successfully cope with your problems. Times are tough, it is true. Times will continue to be tough. In fact, the Bible says that, during a certain period of plagues before Christ's return, many will seek relief through suicide but will not find it (Revelation 9:6And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.



See All...).



God commands, "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13Thou shalt not kill.



See All...). Taking life is God's prerogative, not ours. He expects us to deal with our problems, not to try to escape from them. He advises us that there is to be a resurrection from the dead (I Corinthians 15) so we will have to face our problems down the road anyway. With this in mind, the taking of one's own life is proved to be, at best, merely a temporary solution to one's problems. Suicide is never the answer.

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The Kennedy Assassination: An American Turning Point

From http://el-paso.ucg.org/  or call 1-888-886-8632.

The Kennedy Assassination: An American Turning Point

article by Darris McNeely





This November marks 50 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The news stunned the nation and the world. November 22, 1963, marked a turning point for America. Those who remember the day are still trying to understand what it meant.







Source: WikimediaI remember the moment and where I was when I heard the news. I remember what the weather was like that day. I remember who told me, and I can still hear the shock and anxious tone in her voice: "Did you hear that President Kennedy was killed?"



I was a 12-year-old junior high school student, and it was the last thing I ever expected to hear. Presidential assassinations were something you read about in a history book. Yes, Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated long ago, but surely not someone of our time and place.



What did this mean for our country—and what would it mean for our future?



A long, sad weekend

We began to watch a piece of living history play out that weekend. Gradually details become known. It was the first big news event of the time that caused us to hang on every word of the news commentators. We stared at the fuzzy black-and-white images of first Dallas, and then the arrival in Washington that night of Air Force One, which carried the body of the slain president as well as his successor, now President Lyndon Johnson. The coffin, the widow, the grieving family—all were confirmations the grisly event had indeed occurred.



A horse-drawn caisson bearing the flag-draped coffin made its way from the White House to the Capitol to Arlington Cemetery over the next three days. The steady muffled drum beat moved the world's dignitaries through the streets of the capital. We were stunned when we heard on that Sunday that accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed in Dallas while being transferred between jails—another seemingly senseless act that was not fully understood.



Finally, on the sunny Monday afternoon, the body was laid to rest, and Jacqueline Kennedy lit the eternal flame that still burns today at the grave site. Those four days were a blur as I look back from a perspective of 50 years. As the dust settled and we learned more, we sometimes discovered we understood even less.



A special government commission concluded Kennedy's death was the act of one man acting alone. Ideas that there was a larger tangled web of conspiracy behind the assassination quickly sprang to life. The suspicion that others, even other gunmen, were involved has never been fully resolved for some. Perhaps it matters little now. Most of the main characters in that drama are dead. So much has happened since that day. So much has changed.



A 50-year assessment

But, again, what did this mean for America? Why is it important to remember and learn? A 50-year span in the Bible would mark a time of the year of Jubilee, a year of complete release of debts and a resetting of the economics of the nation. Fifty years is a good place to take an assessment and mark some key generational lessons from one time to another.



For the baby boomer generation, the killing of John Kennedy seems to mark a period of social change that defines our life. There was the America before November 22 and the America after November 22. This singular event marks a moment when comfortable assumptions about the world and life were altered just enough to allow the changes hanging around the fringes of society to come full center, ushering in the sweeping social changes of the 1960s.



If the young charismatic president could be killed in the streets of a major American city, what did that mean for our lives? If life could be ended so tragically, so suddenly—the leader of the free world gunned down—then anything could happen to anyone. All things could change randomly without purpose. Life, many came to conclude, should be lived for the moment without thought for tomorrow.



Looking back, we can mark a number of features that changed the social landscape. One was the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The birth control pill had been around for a few years. This easy-to-use and reliable contraceptive pretty well prevented pregnancy. Its availability underlay the new sexual revolution, the period of "free love" that spawned a whole subculture of promiscuity.



Barriers went down. Behavior that was at least tempered by a moral code became open, accepted and a part of the fabric of life. And the problem was exacerbated by two landmark Supreme Court decisions in 1962 and 1963 to ban prayer and Bible reading in public schools.



Following the expulsion of God from American classrooms, the push for sexual freedom eventually led to abortion rights and then on to the politicizing of sexual orientation with the gay rights agendas of today. Where was the tipping point? It's hard to say. But looking back at a 50-year period, one can trace the thread of change and see its faint origins. The state of morality in America today was not always what we see. Many of us have lived long enough to see the change.



My comment to today's young generation that does not have the perspective of the past 50 years is this:



Look at why past generations tried to lift society to high levels by teaching and publicly endorsing a standard of behavior based on a Christian biblical code. It was to protect families and individuals from the effects of destructive personal behavior.



Society is better when families are intact. Families are better when the father is in the home supporting and honoring the mother. This makes the children secure and gives them better chances for success in life.



Every family study of the past 50 years shows the detrimental impact of divorce, one-parent families and children born out of wedlock. Every perspective of the family the past 50 years has seen a decline from the model God set in place in Scripture to guide the family in creating a strong, stable society.



Decline in government

I have lived long enough to see another major shift. It is the plummeting respect for governing institutions, laws and people who serve in high office.



The youthful and charismatic John Kennedy, despite his failings, was viewed as a bold, inspiring and visionary leader. His successor upon his death, Lyndon Johnson, lacked the same persona and air about him. Johnson embroiled America in the Vietnam War, and public backlash kept him from seeking a second term in office. The next president, Richard Nixon, had to resign in disgrace after lying to cover up his knowledge of the tawdry affair called Watergate.



Government in America today has reached a level of mediocrity that imperils its standing as the leading nation in the world. Massive government debt accumulated over 50 years threatens not only the nation's role as the preeminent economic power but its role as the leading military power in the world.



Politicians are unable or unwilling to effectively deal with the economic troubles that impact health care, retirement and economic stability. Confidence in leadership in 2013 seems at such a low point that it would take many years and a new level of competence to erase the effect of recent decades.



Fifty years later the leadership of this great nation is in a sad condition. Problems of debt, immigration, gender politics and social breakdown stare us in the face, and no one in leadership can sound a clear call to action that would lead us from the brink of collapse back to a position of stability with positive hope for the future.



All this did not begin on or because of November 22, 1963. No single event can always tag the problem or the solution. What arises is a zeitgeist or spirit of an age, defining how people are and think during a period. If it's ultimately self-destructive, this can, if not reversed, eventually kill a people.



Just as population levels can reach such a low point that it becomes impossible to recover and decline is inevitable, so a spiritual condition can arise and become so deeply ingrained that a collapse will occur unless deep change—on the order of national repentance as called for in the Bible—takes place. Fifty years on from the assassination of John F. Kennedy, we are at that place.



Why pick this event?

Choosing President Kennedy's assassination as marking a turning point in time is not done at random. This event defines a period in American history that will be studied by future generations as the time when seeds of a bitter harvest were sown. It will be seen as the time when the singular great nation of history, the United States of America, began to falter and fail under a growing burden of sin.



Like the ancient nation of Israel, which broke covenant with God and rejected what was good, we have sown the seeds of our destruction. We have erected idols of status, celebrity, fame and self in place of the laws and teachings of God the Creator. On that day in Dallas we lost our innocence and embarked on our own paths of destruction. It has taken us five decades of further stumbling to get to this point.



The prophet Hosea spoke God's words to the people of Israel at a similar moment in their story:



"Sound the alarm! The enemy descends like an eagle on the people of the Lord, for they have broken my covenant and revolted against my law. Now Israel pleads with me, 'Help us, for you are our God!' But it is too late. The people of Israel have rejected what is good, and now their enemies will chase after them" (Hosea 8:1-3 [1] Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.

[2] Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee.

[3] Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him.





See All..., New Living Translation).



Today, America's enemies hover around our fortified walls and call for our downfall. That is what the war on terror is all about. Terrorists plot to kill our citizens, whether on our soil or in our foreign embassies. They wish us ill. Whether out of envy, fear or ignorance of who we are and what we stand for, they plot our demise. Like a predator from the sky, they swoop down and inflict another wound. And God says it's because we have revolted against His law.



These are strong words to consider. These words define the core of our problem—we have broken and defied the law of God. So we call out for help, but the answers don't come.



Hosea continues: "They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind. The stalks of grain wither and produce nothing to eat. And even if there is any grain, foreigners will eat it. The people of Israel have been swallowed up; they lie among the nations like an old discarded pot. Like a wild donkey looking for a mate, they have gone up to Assyria.



"The people of Israel have sold themselves —sold themselves to many lovers. But though they have sold themselves to many allies, I will now gather them together for judgment. Then they will writhe under the burden of the great king" (verses 7-10, NLT).



Most people in America today would scoff at the idea of this generation being called to account in a judgment from God. Yet could it be possible that this generation has "planted the wind" and will "harvest the whirlwind," eating the bitter stalks of withered grain?



What does it mean?

Fifty years on from the killing of President Kennedy, what can we learn? Here is what you should consider. America, and for that matter the English-speaking nations of Great Britain, Australia and Canada, face a defining moment with their place in the world. Their time in history is changing. They "lie among the nations" discarded and discounted by the measurements that matter—godly righteousness and obedience to the Ten Commandments.



While our affluent lifestyle continues—and only God knows how long that will continue—there is still time for you to consider your life before Him and turn to Him in heartfelt change, what the Bible calls repentance.



Use this time yet before you to consider what you read here in The Good News. Prove what we teach and say. Compare it with the Bible. Take this message personally and ask what God is saying to you as you read this article in this magazine at this point in your life.



And to see the fact of societal decline even more clearly, take an honest look at the quality and condition of your community and your world. Things are getting worse, and the worst is yet to come.



But you can improve your life. You can learn the lessons of recent history and make decisions in your life that will reverse the decline you may be experiencing. You are responsible for your life, and you alone can change!