They say our love is wrong, but it feels so right. We sneak around in the dark, hiding from the light of life. They say our love will bring doom, but we don't care, we only live for the moment that we mutually share. When we play, they say our love is illicit, but we can’t stop what we know is complicit. We know the risks and the pain it leaves for others, but we won't give up until death appoints us as lovers. -SR Phinney
THE ILLICIT LOVER
Suicide is a very serious and complex issue that affects many people - indwelt Christian or not. As an authentic believer in Christ, I believe that God is the creator and giver of life and that He is the only One who should decide to take a life. He has a purpose and plan for every person. When an individual decides to take their own life before He fulfills His purpose of bringing them to the end of their selfishness, a question must be asked. Is suicide an unpardonable sin against God? And… Do Christians go to Heaven if they kill themselves?
The first question that needs to be asked is: What makes a Christian a Christian?
In our society today, there is a demonic belief associated with being a Christian. Most people associate Christianity with following Jesus Christ and His teachings without being possessed or indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We call them Christ Followers. Over ninety percent of our churches and ministries use this idyllic label to describe being Christian.
I asked one of the leading Christian research institutes, which produces most of the national statistics regarding Christianity, a question. “Why don’t you separate ‘Christ Followers’ from those who believe being a Christian is having the Life of Christ living within them?” They responded with, “We don’t survey the latter group.”
Reader, that is a massive problem.
The problematic issues that come with the organic definition of what defines an authentic Christian are critical regarding the issue of “Christian suicides.” Before I address this issue, I would like for you to read an analogy my Sunday School teacher shared years ago regarding his affair with suicide.
A DANGEROUS ROMANCE
The climb up from the floor of the Valley of Recollections proved to be much steeper than I had expected. Ascending the decaying slope was not easy. There was no path to follow, nor could I see my destination. It lay beyond the silhouette formed by the canyon's rim against the night sky!
It was almost morning when I reached the top. Exhausted, I sank to the ground to rest; but my thoughts were still with those that I had left below.
As the day waited for the rising sun, in the haze of early dawn, I gradually became aware of my surroundings. A new landscape lay before me. It was no more pleasing to look at than the one I had just left behind. Stretched out before me were the hills and dark valleys of my own experiences.
Slowly, the haze began to melt from the warmth of the morning sun, and I could see that some of the higher hills of the past were closer than others. The higher the hill, the deeper was its shadow that held the valley in lingering darkness.
The sun was barely above the horizon when a chill swept up from the valley to arouse the first breeze; it was then that my past life began to take on the form of reality.
Startled, I remembered that my Mind had once had a serious affair with that same scandalous chap named Suicide! I knew his reputation, but it excited me to have a mysterious relationship that no one else could see or know. It was almost sensual, the way he stirred Emotion, who slumbered inside me. Secretly, we were meeting each other in the frequent seclusion of the deep recesses of my mind ‘within’. I must have fallen romantically in love with him. He always seemed to satisfy my need for understanding. Suicide had never once raised his voice in disagreement with me. He had fulfilled my romantic dreams of the perfect lover. Suicide wore a pleasing mask!
I am not sure how this affair began. Much like other illicit affairs, I suppose. Very innocently at first, with the usual childish flirtations. There were those little enticing glances whenever we passed by each other. But we never became serious, until . . . Then, there was that one lonely night when I realized that I wanted him. I had always known that he wanted me, too; yet, his enchanting power over me had only recently developed. It wasn't long before I found that my Mind could think of nothing else. Emotion played a deliberate part in this early romance. Emotion really is the one who brought us together, having played the part of matchmaker in all sorts of strange flirtations in my life. I know you really want to understand what happened, so let me take you back into my past. Come with me now, as I lead you through the hidden caverns of my experience.
Many past motives are now obvious to me. Inflamed passions play strange tricks upon Emotion, driving it along blind paths, where Emotion could never distinguish between Romance and Love. lt was not obvious then, but now I see that Romance is infatuated with her own concept of what she needs to satisfy the imaginary idol that she worships. Romance pursues her desire for an imaginary mate with an abandon that is shameless in its compulsion to obtain, at all costs, her climax of satisfaction. Whatever the love object may be, romantic yearnings excuse and justify the obvious errors of her course. All faults are brushed aside. All care is tossed to the wind. Romance induces a mysterious eclipse that shadows reality in the Mind.
John Stevens wrote this allegory in a book he wrote titled Suicide, An Illicit Lover. I sat under John’s teachings for multiple years. This book depicts his early struggle with wanting to end his life. Once he was freed from this lover’s grip, he became one of the all-time historical teachers of the believer’s identity in Christ.
Early in John’s life, he was a troubled soul looking for answers in all the wrong places - medications, self-contemplation, success, and a host of other self-help ideologies. He was plagued with inferiority, depression, and anxiety, which became a way of life for him. However, John became successful in negotiating the course of being released from this illicit lover by the Grace of God - by applying who he was in and through Jesus Christ.
While John was my Sunday School teacher, he was my life mentor’s best friend - Dr. Charles Solomon. These two men influenced my life so profoundly that I remain a steadfast teacher of the identified indwelling Life of Christ as the only answer to the believer’s darkest hours.
CHRISTIANS AND SUICIDE
Unsaved, Christ Follower, or an actual indwelt Christian, this topic matters. If an unsaved person or a “Christ Follower” kills themselves before receiving the Holy Spirit upon authentic salvation, sadly, they DO NOT go to Heaven to be with Jesus.
The death of a loved one challenges the core of honesty and Truth to its very core. Honestly, most lie to themselves after the death of a beloved to comfort or refute their worst fear - is Grandpa in Heaven or Hell? In fact, most pastors at the burial site lie to the family and friends of the deceased by saying Christianized phrases such as - they are resting in peace, they are in the arms of Jesus, or they are in a better place. Statistically, this is the opposite of the Truth. Jesus said the road to destruction is wide, and many are on it, and the road to Heaven is narrow, and few are on it. That Heavenly statistic is alive and well as we stare at the caskets before us.
So, what about Christians who kill themselves?
It is simply theology, folks. If the despairing person is indwelt by the Life of Christ at the point of death, and you are a real deal Christian filled with the Holy Spirit, you WILL see them on Heaven’s side. If the despairing one never actually invited the Life of Christ into their mortal being through being filled with the Holy Spirit, facts being Biblical facts, they will NOT be in the arms of Jesus.
God is merciful and compassionate, and He understands the struggles and temptations that authentic indwelt believers face in this fallen world. He knows our hearts and minds, and He is able to forgive us for any sin, including suicide, if we repent and trust in His grace at the moment of death. Suicide is not the unpardonable sin, nor does it automatically condemn a person to hell. Only God can judge the motive and condition of a life shortly before they take their last breath. Then He alone determines the eternal destiny of THAT person, and He does so based on their faith in Jesus Christ, not on their actions.
No human can answer the question of the eternal results of a person who committed suicide. Jesus said:
"You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22)
This is a judgment call that only Jesus can make. Furthermore, at the grave site of those who chose to end their life, we must trust in God to rightly judge the heart of the loved one lying in that casket - to refuse to question or make false proclamations to comfort our grief. We must believe that the outcome of the deceased is in God’s hands, not in our Christianized rhetoric.
I will close with words from my old Sunday School teacher:
MY NEW ROMANCE
We stand together, you and I, by the wheel of the mighty ‘ship of life’, looking first at the compass, then at the horizon before us, then to the star above. Then we know that the way is laid out before us, for the Compass is His unfailing Word to guide us; the horizon is the uncertainties of this life, but the Star is the assurance of prayer. The wheel is the confidence of His presence within us, by which we can do all things. You and I will never fear again, for the ‘mighty ship’ we now sail upon is emblazoned with huge letters of solid gold, both fore and aft, christened by the Spirit of God, with the name of His New Life. The Captain of the Lord of Hosts is her Skipper, for the Lord Jesus Christ is our strength, our victory, our life, our hope, and our salvation! Forever and ever, Amen.
I must leave you now. I hope you have found a beautiful New Romance with my Lord Jesus Christ, as we have traveled together. If you have, I won’t say good-bye but simply, “I’ll see you there, as we explore His Riches in Glory, together with Him.“
John, Dr. Solomon, I will see you soon on Heaven’s side. I have held to the teachings both of you taught me in Christ. I have heard and heeded the words of Jesus through both of you - what began in death has ended in life; a present New Life in Christ.
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