Ask Pastor Mike Live

Speaker 1

The loss of any life is tragic, but the pain of a loved one's passing is magnified if they made the choice to end their own lives. Today we'll be discussing the difficult topic of suicide with Bible teacher, author, and pastor Mike Febares.

And welcome to a special edition of Folklore. Welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host, Dave Droue, and I'm glad to have you here with us. For the next half hour, we'll sit down with Pastor Mike Febares to answer a heartfelt question from a hurting listener.

If you'd like to pose a question of your own, you're invited to do so by visiting focal pointradio.org, but I'll share more details about contacting us later. Right now, let's join executive director Jay Wurton inside the Pastor Study.

Speaker 2

Pastor MIKE: Today we have a heavy question to answer: Is suicide an unpardonable sin?

Now, I'm sure there are some listening who have had either family or friends who've committed suicide, and I'm sure it causes a lot of confusion and grief for those left behind.

But how would you respond to this listener's question?

Speaker 3

Well, yeah, and I guess to take it as you posed it, if someone asked me directly face to face, is suicide an unpardonable sin? I would want to know why they're asking the question. Because you've got two groups of people. If there's someone sitting there in a state of depression, feeling bad, they're contemplating their own demise and they ask me that question, I want to be able to say very clearly to the one contemplating suicide, suicide's wrong. Let's make it very clear. Killing yourself is an act of self-murder and it's wrong. And I would tell anyone who's contemplating suicide this is sin and it's wrong and it's prohibited. There are other answers for the depression or the difficulty and the despondency you may feel or the grief or the loss or whatever you're dealing with; murdering yourself is not the right answer.

Now when someone asks me, well, I have this person in my life that's committed suicide. Now do I write off everything else about their life and just assume that they are lost and they're in hell? And that answer would be a bit more complicated because, like asking, has someone committed murder, are they non-Christian? I would say, well, that would depend on the situation. There are sins, big sins that Christians commit that are out of character for everything else in their lives. In other words, they're not the kind of person that I would expect to murder someone because I see fruit in their lives. I see consistency in terms of their walk with God. I see the evidence of the reality of what it means to be a Christian in their lives. But here's this thing that they did, and it's an egregious, sinful, immoral thing. Does that mean they're not a Christian? And I would say not necessarily. Because there are Christians that do things that are egregious and tragic and huge sinful acts. And they're usually things that, because of that act, if it doesn't end their life, they repent of, they feel great grief for because the Spirit dwells in them and they get back on the beam and walk with God.

Well, suicide, you can't do that. And so I don't know, if they were a Christian just based on the act alone, you'd have to take the totality of that person's life. Do they have a testimony of repenting of their sins and putting their trust in Christ? Was there evidence of that in other areas of their life? And then I wouldn't necessarily say no. The problem is, the reason we ask this question is throughout the development of Roman Catholicism, there has been this division of sins into venial and mortal sins and whole systems as to how to solve those problems in the process of sanctification in a Christian's life. And when you commit a mortal sin like this and there's no way to rectify it in this life, then you've got writing off of the hope of a person that commits suicide because it's a mortal sin, and there's no way for them to do any penance or make right for that.

All I'm saying is that whole system is flawed. There is no such direction in Scripture to do that with sin in terms of dividing into venial and mortal. And so I can't buy that. I can't affirm that. I would never repeat that to someone and say, well, this is a mortal sin. They had no time to make it right. Then they're lost. So my concern in our culture is when someone does commit suicide and everyone's quick to just write it off as, well, they had some kind of emotional illness and they're not responsible for it. I would want to get away from that because the idea of responsibility and, you know, whether I can point to a syndrome or a disorder to just say, well, I'm not responsible for my behavior, then we've got way too much of that thinking in our culture today.

We're blaming everything on a lot of issues that we call sicknesses. They're not based on pathology. You can't look under a microscope and see it. They're based on behaviors and behavioral patterns. Now, that can be a long discussion we could have, but we need to get away from that and realize God dignifies human beings by making them responsible, accountable, culpable for what they do and their decisions. So I would always want to say to someone, don't buy into writing off your thoughts. If you're tempted with suicide to say, well, this is just part of some kind of emotional disorder or some sickness that I have, you know, I would want to say, listen, you need to get to your pastor. You need to get to a Christian friend. You need to sit down. You need to realize that God has dignified human beings to be able to do things through the power of God's Spirit, to change behaviors, even thought patterns, to be able to find what it means to walk in sync with Jesus Christ and filled and empowered by God's Spirit, to see patterns of thinking and behavior change.

So don't feel like a victim in all of this. You need to see that God has made you an agent that He can empower to change things. That even months or even years of real patterns of bad thinking or wrong thinking or feelings that have overwhelmed your mind, God can do a lot to change all of that. And there always ought to be hope for you. And contemplating suicide should not be part of your thinking.

Speaker 2

Pastor Mike, in the Bible, we see a number of biblical figures that are despairing of death or even desiring it in some cases, but never taking their life.

Moses, Elijah, and Job, you know, going through what he went through. Even Paul talking about being absent from the body.

How should we take their example in our own lives?

Speaker 4

Right?

Speaker 3

That's like talking about the person that is lusting but not committing adultery. You know, I realize that the ultimate sin in terms of suicide is committing suicide, but even entertaining the thoughts of that and continuing to indulge the thoughts of taking my life, that I think can be seen as sin. Just like indulging in thoughts of lust can be seen as sin, even though it's not the act of adultery.

The point, though, is that you can encounter thoughts of lust and realize, hey, those need to be dealt with. We need to fight those just like we would fight the despondency or the feelings of wanting to take my own life. Paul, Elijah, Job, all these people in the Bible that felt like they were despairing of life. You know, these are not highlights of their life. They're not things that they're proud of or indulging in, but it's part of the reality of living in this world.

So I'm all for understanding a Christian who says, I've had thoughts or feelings of ending my life. I get that. I recognize that. And I wouldn't say, well, that's super bizarre. And, you know, it's not normal. But what we need to do is to deal with that, understanding that those things cannot be entertained and indulged in our minds. We certainly don't want it to ever lead to the culmination that the sin of doing that, and whether it's adultery or suicide.

So it's how we deal with those thoughts. And thankfully, in most cases, there are some exceptions. We have in the Bible people that are pulling through those things because God and God's people have intervened. I think of Paul. You talked about Paul despairing his life. He says Titus came and God brought comfort through his friend Titus to help relieve this feeling of despondency that Paul had. So there are ways out. God wants to get us out of those.

And I should put a footnote to this, though. Our goal is not to be perpetually happy, right? We need to realize that we're never going to, as human beings, always be living on this happiness high. So there are going to be days we feel sad. The point is, we want to stay away from spiraling into feelings of wanting to end our lives or being despondent. We need to realize God's got answers for that.

Usually found not just in private seeking of God and prayer, although that's important and center to the whole solution. But it's also engaging with God's people, being vulnerable enough and allowing ourselves to have the kind of partnerships that Paul had with Titus. Even Job, his three friends were not great. But, you know, the fourth friend that came along and God himself ministering to Job pulled these men out of these feelings of despondency.

And so we need to not deal with these privately. We need to try to deal with these with the resources God gives in the church, which certainly include people.

Speaker 2

I mean, that's the place we're going to find others that are going to help bear our burdens with us and see us through those types of things. Definitely.

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I'm sure this conversation gave a lot of people hope and encouragement.

I trust we're going to finish this conversation with a message you've titled "Finish Well: Pleasing God in Your Final Chapter."

Speaker 4

As George Bernard Shaw said, the statistics on death are quite impressive. One in one people die. We are all going to die. Paul said it may be in my life real soon. And if it is, I want to have everything in my life in place so that when I face death, I do it in a way that makes God happy. I do it in a way that exalts Christ.

Now this is a message I hope you don't apply this week, if you know what I mean. I don't want you to have to use this message this week. But before you face the final chapter of your life, I need you to think about how you might finish well, how you might die well, how you might go out of this world in a way that exalts Christ and pleases God. How do we do it in a way that pleases God?

Well, in First Samuel, chapter 31, which is the last chapter in the book, we come to the last chapter in the life of King Saul, and he shows us the way that we shouldn't die. He gives us an example of how not to die. And if we can turn that around and learn from Saul's bad example how to finish well, perhaps we can leave here being prepared when God calls us home to leave this world in a Christ-honoring way.

Take a look at the passage, if you would, beginning in verse number one. This is 1 Samuel, chapter 31. Notice how it unfolds. In verse number one, it says, "The Philistines fought against Israel, and the Israelites fled before them." We had already learned this was a huge army that the Philistines had amassed against Israel. And so the Israelites turned. They said, "We can't do it." They retreated and they split.

And of course, as in any battle, they focused on the leader. The text says in verse number two, "The Philistines pressed hard against Saul." They wanted to kill Saul and his sons. Of course, we want to take out not only the king, but we want to take out the heirs to the throne. The text says in verse number two that they killed Saul's sons, Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua. Here were the three royal children laying dead on Mount Gilboa. This is bad.

Verse three states, "The fighting grew fierce against Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically." So here he is, he's got an arrow in him. He's bleeding to death; his three sons have just died. The armies are retreating, and his soldiers are laying dead all around Mount Gilboa. Saul, completely frustrated and at the end of his rope, in verse number four, says to his armor bearer, note it carefully: "Draw your sword and run me through. Kill me, put me out of my misery, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me."

Because you know what they do when they capture the kings of these armies? You know this is not going to be a pretty sight. If they take me alive, they're going to torture me; they're going to kill me. There'll be lots of pain involved. But the armor bearer, at the bottom of verse number four, was terrified. He wouldn't do it.

Speaker 3

No.

Speaker 4

No, King, I can't. I can't. I can't kill you. So, Saul, notice it leans over his sword, pushes it against the rock or some crevice in the ground, and he kills himself. He took his sword and he fell on him.

We may be able to commiserate and say, you know, I understand, Saul. You had nothing to face but humiliation. You had nothing to face but pain. You're critically wounded. You know, you're bleeding to death. Dying now by the sword of the armor bearer or my own sword, you can understand, we may sympathize with that, but we can't ever endorse it. We may understand it, but we can't ever excuse it, because the Bible's really clear.

Our goal is to finish out our days, and God determines the day. Psalm 39 says he has determined our days and written them in a book before there was yet one of them. God wants us to finish the course.

To put it in the words of the Apostle Paul, finish the race. You can't finish the race if, when we face death and the pain and struggle of death, we say, I'll determine when this ends. And I'm not trying to say God is in favor of pain and suffering. You know, he's not. Proverbs 31 is clear. Give strong drink to him who is perishing. God, thankfully, is in favor of morphine.

Speaker 3

You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 4

That's a good thing. Take the edge off the pain. But I can't face it without a tremendous amount of courage and say, if my life is not over yet, if I'm still breathing, if my heart is still beating, and if I'm still existing in this world and God has given me another day of life, then I can't choose to take it because I'm afraid of the pain. You see, the real issue is fear of pain. And the Bible says that if we're going to die well, we need to be men of courage. Wasn't that the word the Apostle Paul said? He says that I would have sufficient courage that I might exalt Christ, whether by life or by death. He needed courage.

And the first thing on your outline, if you're taking notes, the thing that Saul lacked is the thing that we need, you and I, if we're going to die in a way that pleases Christ: we need to die with courage. I put it this way: Be courageous in the face of death. You and I need to be courageous. And in light of our theology, the first fundamental thing we need to focus on should be pretty much a no-brainer. Because our theology and our creeds assert the fact that we believe that when we're absent from the body, we're present with God.

And the very thing, according to Hebrews 2, Jesus came to accomplish at the first coming of Christ was to take away from our lives the fear of death. And you may say with 1 Corinthians 15, I believe the sting of death is gone and I'm really not afraid of death. And if you're there, you've made some progress; that's good. But though most of us can sit back, cross our arms and say, well, you know, we're not afraid of death, but you know, I'm not really anticipating the process of dying, we need to say the courage that it's going to take to cross the unknown threshold of this life into the next needs to be the kind of courage that I face the process of dying with.

I need to say, if I lay in a hospital bed, I need to be the kind of person that says I'm going to face not only death itself, but the process of dying with the same courage that the Apostle Paul said. If they hang me, torture me, stretch me out on a rack, I want to have sufficient courage that I may exalt Christ, whether by life or by death. It takes a lot of courage to live life. It takes a lot of courage to die. Well, not trying to be despairing toward the leader of Israel. I'm just saying God would want him to sit down and recognize that whatever comes his way with God, he can handle. I can do all things, Paul said, through Christ who strengthens me. That's got to be our theology.

When we face our last day, if we're ever going to please God with the way we finish this life, we should never, ever lose hope. Don't ever lose hope. But if God has got you on earth and you're still breathing, there is hope. There is hope for you to be productive, to do something significant for the body of Christ. It's a bright spot in this passage. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Beginning in verse 11, it says that the people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. Now, if that rings a bell, it's because we've heard of this town before. It's a little town about a day's journey. There were some people there, and they're described in a certain way. In verse number 12, there was a group of valiant men who journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down these headless corpses that hung on the walls of this Philistine outpost, the bodies of Saul and his son from the wall of Bethshon, and they went to Jabesh where they burned them.

That's not the normal custom for disposing of bodies, apparently. Pardon the vividness of this, but the bodies were probably so mutilated or so putrefied at this point. This was a way to restore some kind of dignified burial. So once the flesh was burned off these bodies, pardon all of that, but in verse number 13, it says they took the bones and, as best they could, with dignity and grace, they buried them under a tamarisk tree. And if that's familiar, it's because Saul used to like to sit under the tamarisk tree in Gibeah and give orders to the troops.

And so the best way they could, these valiant men of Jabesh Gilead snuck into enemy territory when everyone else was retreating in the cover of darkness and said, this is our king and these are the royal children, and we're bringing them back and going to give them some kind of dignified burial. And then it says in the bottom of verse 13 that they fasted for seven days. They had a seven-day ceremony where they spent focusing on the profound loss that they had been through. The mourning period had started, the fasting to give them a decent burial.

Now you say, why in the world would these guys do this? Turn, if you would, to chapter 11, same book. Refresh your memory as to one of the first things Saul did in his ministry. This is telling and it's very interesting for us to note. Here was Saul's body. He's gone, he's dead, but his body hanging on a wall. And here was a group of men from a certain town that said, we're going to give this guy a decent burial and we'll risk our lives to do it.

And while everyone else was going the opposite direction and stepping over dead Israeli soldiers' bodies, they walked up there and took those bodies off, took them back, and gave them a decent burial. Why would they do that? Chapter 11 of First Samuel reminds us of the first events of Saul's kingship after being anointed. The Bible talks about the spirit of God coming on Saul, and he does a few things in his kingship that are noteworthy and honorable.

And one of them was that when this foreign army attacked the city of Jabesh Gilead, he says, get the troops together. And under the authority and power of God's spirit and through the strength and courage of God's spirit, he marches out there and defends them. Look at the scenario. Verse number nine. It says they, that is Saul and his soldiers, told the messengers who had come from Jabesh Gilead, say to the men of Jabesh Gilead, by the time the sun is hot tomorrow, you will be delivered. It's done, man. When the messengers went and reported this to the men of Jabesh, they were elated.

And that's what happened. Saul marches up with his newly formed army and routes the foreign enemy, and the Jabesh Gilead people go nuts. This is the greatest guy in all of Israel. This new king idea is great. We sure like King Saul. Saul selflessly risked his life to serve these people. Noted it wasn't as common or as often as it should have been. And though he proved to be a coward often in his life, this was one highlight. He served selflessly and invested in the people of Jabesh Gilead.

And when he had died and was in need of some formal, dignified departure, these guys risked their life to give it to him. Now, to the super spiritual among us, this may seem like a crass way to put this truth, but you got to recognize your funeral will be an indicator in some degree of the life that you lived. That may sound odd and morbid and weird and strange and humanistic, but let me say I've done enough funerals and been to enough funerals and preached enough funerals to know that there are some funerals that I stand up on this platform and the place is loaded to the rafters and the cry rooms are filled with people saying, that guy made a difference in my life.

That guy served the body of Christ. He was my Sunday school teacher. He was a small group leader. He served us, man. He made an impact on us. He sacrificed for us. And they're there to pay their respects to that departed person. And I've seen the funerals where people are just saying that was a servant. But it's sad for me to relate to you that I've been to funerals where I'm there dressed up in my...

Speaker 3

Suit, and we got a casket and.

Speaker 4

We got the hearse, and I'm going, where's everybody? That may sound real crass, real worldly, real humanistic, trying to judge your life based on your funeral. But let me say this. When you grow in favor with God, God directs your attention to serve people. And oftentimes, like in the life of Christ and also in the life of Samuel, of whom both the Bible said they grew in favor with God and man.

And when you serve God faithfully and risk your life and give of yourself to invest in other people, guess what happens when your life is over? People miss you. Now, is that the goal, to get people to miss you when you're gone? No, it's not the goal, but it's the byproduct of living a godly life. And I wonder what your funeral will be like. Will there be people there that say, man, that person impacted my life. They served me?

You want to finish well. You want to exalt Christ in your life and your death? Well, prepare for that. Why? How? Keep investing in people. Keep investing in people. Saul did it from time to time, and in his death, we saw that because some men risked their life to be at his funeral.

I'd sure like people at my funeral to stand up and say, he sacrificed and gave and impacted my life. By God's strength and with his power, may we be able to. No matter what threshold God takes us through, no matter how he writes the script for our final chapter, may we face it with courage, with great hope, and with fruit. Let's leave behind some people that we impacted. You do that. I guarantee you'll finish well.

Speaker 1

Pleasing God in your final chapter. A timely message from Mike Fabarez here on Focal Point. It's part of an Ask Pastor Mike feature on the difficult topic of suicide. Hear it again at focalpointradio.org. You know, topics like these demand that we don't skirt around the truth or veer from the whole counsel of God's word. For that reason, Focal Point is dedicated to contextual accuracy so the truths we discover can be examined fully and lived out with integrity.

When life seems unbearable, we can learn to work through our heartache and align our thoughts with God's to continue processing. You'll want the book *Change My Heart O God: A Devotional Journal of 52 Resolves*. This book was designed by Pastor Mike to move your thinking from futility and frustration to a place of God-honoring peace. Journaling pages, along with Pastor Mike's helpful resolutions, direct you to God's timeless, relevant truth. Let it transform your mind and guide your next steps. The *Change My Heart, O God Devotional Journal* is yours when you give a generous gift to Focal Point today. Call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org.

We recently received a kind letter from Jason in Maryland who wrote, "I'm very thankful for Pastor Mike and the expository teaching of God's Word. I've gained a greater understanding of the Bible and I love the Focal Point app. Thanks for all Focal Point does. I continually pray for you." Thanks, Jason.

And to everyone listening today, thanks for remembering that Focal Point is made possible through the ongoing support of listeners like you who express their gratitude with a tangible gift. Your much-needed donation is so appreciated today. Thanks for giving generously. When you call, call 888-320-5885.

I'm Dave Drouy for Mike Fabarez, inviting you to join us again next week for more on the Psalms, Monday on Focal Point with Mike Fabarez. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 4

Sam.