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Thread: ?'s about suicide....

  1. #1
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    Default ?'s about suicide....

    My mother commited suicide more than 13 years ago and I have been tortured by thoughts of her going to hell ever since even though she was a very good woman. No, I'm not Catholic.
    She had cancer and the radiation therapy was making her go blind. I know she was in a very deep depression at the time and nothing I said was able to console her, including trying to get her to move in with me. I was 700 miles away at the time and I've been struggleing with this ever since.

    I would really appreciate any input from those that are more educated in this than I am.....although I'm trying to catch up.

    Thank you in advance as this is a very tough subject for me. And please, tell me the truth....not what you may think I want to hear.

  2. #2
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    Lake Rat... I'm not a theologian, just someone saved by grace who has experienced some actual miracles, and who has learned what "the fear of the Lord" really feels like. It's one thing to acknowledge in our heads and hearts that we believe that He can heal us or otherwise perform miracles.

    It's something else again- truly indescribable- to actually experience that. His power is so far beyond what we can comprehend, well... we're only going to be able to really comprehend it when we're finally in Heaven with Him.

    He is a just God, as well as a loving God. He knew your mother's pain, and fear and depression in a way that none of us could ever come close to. I don't believe He wants people to commit suicide, because it cuts short His plans for their lives.

    But in the end, none of us can know for certain what goes in between any individual and the Lord, and presuming to judge that someone is in Hell is hubris of the worst kind. I think you can trust Him to be at least as compassionate and understanding and loving in dealing with your mother as you would have been.

    Give her and your fears to Him, and trust in His love

    Summerthyme

  3. #3
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    I know you said that you are not Catholic. But the Church holds that someone who commits suicide is, well, effectively operating under diminished capacity. That there is some form of mental illness at work. And given that, that we cling to the mercy of the One who sees-and understands-all.

    I know that it has been a while, but you have my sympathies on your loss...

    Rachel
    "For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears. They will stop listening to the truth and wander off to fables." (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

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    Our final destination, heaven or hell, is based only on a person's relationship with Jesus Christ. Being a "good" person has nothing to do with it because the standard is perfection and none of us can obtain that here on earth. We are saved by the foreign righteousness of Christ earned at the Cross and given freely to those who ask. All others are damned no matter what they do.

    We are all going to die someday in a manner known only to God. I don't believe that suicide, in and of itself, can necessarily be considered a mortal sin. There are many factors to be considered and those are known only to God. We must trust Him to make the right decision in these situations.

  5. #5
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    Thank you both for your quick replies, although it took me more than 13 years to face the question. I can't help but think that God knew the terrible pain that she was in and forgave her...but (yea, there's always a but) I hear so much of the one sin that can't be forgiven. I guess my heart and my head have conflicts of what I will not know until I am there.

    And yes, I still pray for my mother after all these years....

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    Thank you Snowbandit......

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    I sent you a PM but I would like to share a short article with you called 'An encouraging word about death.'

    AN ENCOURAGING THOUGHT ABOUT DEATH

    Death has two different meanings that are essential for us to differentiate:


    The ACT OF DYING or termination of life.


    The STATE OF BEING DEAD.

    All humanity will experience "the act of dying," but absolutely no one will ever experience the "state of being dead." And this is because:

    "For the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything…" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).

    This may be comforting to some, but scary to others. It all depends on your point of view; your perspective; your emotional stability; your up-bringing; your understanding. What I want to do in this little article is give you an encouraging perspective of death. "How can anything be encouraging when it comes to death?" you are probably asking. Well, let me try and answer that for you.

    Virtually every time that I have read that verse (dozens of times), it was to prove to someone that we do not have an immortal soul that lives on after death of the body, nor do we have consciousness as is taught in Christendom. But this past year I took another look at this verse and saw something else that I had never contemplated before.

    Not only is there no consciousness in death, but there is no consciousness OF death either. This is the encouraging part.

    "The living KNOW that they shall die, but the dead KNOW NOT ANYTHING."

    Let’s think about that for a few moments and see if this is not quite encouraging.

    "The living KNOW… the dead know NOTHING." The dead don’t know that they are dead. When you die, you will NOT KNOW THAT YOU ARE DEAD! But it gets better. Not only will you never know that you are dead at some point in the future, but from your perspective YOU NEVER EVEN LOST CONSCIOUSNESS. This to me was a marvelous revelation.

    Once God creates consciousness in a human they will NEVER EVER know anything BUT CONSCIOUSNESS. From my perspective and from your perspective we will never "know" ANYTHING but life and feelings and emotions and consciousness. From our perspective we will never "know" what it is like to be dead. Oh we will probably die some day (assuming that the Lord doesn’t come first), but we will never know that we were dead; we will never know what it is to BE dead, or to BE unconscious. Others will know and sorrow (maybe?) that we are dead and gone, but from OUR perspective we will never lose conscious reality, and we will never "experience" being dead.

    Now I didn’t say we would not experience "dying." Most (albeit not all) people who die, experience dying, but they do NOT experience death itself, nor will they ever. It is impossible for someone to experience the death state, seeing that where there is no consciousness, there is no experience, and therefore there is no memory of it. I will carry this one step further. Even if there was no such thing as a resurrection from the dead, the dead would never know that they died and would never know that they are dead.

    This to me is an amazing thing. Once God created consciousness, cognizance, awareness, perception, sensation, emotions, and the like; we never ever loose it from OUR PERSPECTIVE, and after all, whose perspective counts the most when it comes to death—ours or someone else’s?

    We may all go through the fear of dying or even the pain of dying, but there is no pain and no fear IN DEATH ITSELF. No one who is presently dead is aware of it, or experiencing it, or being frightened by it, or anything else.

    DEATH IS SLEEP

    I was tempted to make that caption: DEATH IS LIKE SLEEP, but that would be Scripturally inaccurate, as nowhere do the Scriptures state that death is "like" sleep, but rather that death IS SLEEP. God prepared Moses for death with the following:

    "And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, you shall sleep [Heb: shakab—to lie down, to rest, to sleep, to decease] with your fathers…" (Deut. 31:16).

    David said:

    "Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" (Psalm 13:3).

    When Lazarus was dead (John 11:14), Jesus said:

    "Our friend Lazarus sleeps: but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep" (John 11:11).

    Do you fear when your children "sleep" at night? You know that they are safe in sleep. Even in sleep we have a slight awareness of life, especially when we are dreaming or falling in and out of sleep, but in death there is no consciousness nor sub-consciousness, and so you will never know that you are sleeping. You know that your children will awake in the morning. We all who died IN CHRIST, shall awake in the morning of resurrection. And when we do, we might remember dying, but we will not remember ever being dead.

    On five different occasions I came very near to death. Three of the five times I was unconscious. For all practicality, I was dead. I remember what happened before and after being unconscious, but I remember nothing of BEING unconscious. Yet I knew that I was, but only after the fact by the evidence, not from my actual experience of having been under. The actual fact of death is no different from what I already experienced several times. And you have all experienced it already as well. We all sleep, and unless we have bad dreams, the experience of sleep itself is nothing fearful or painful.

    Sleep is a way that God can set people aside for a little while as He works with our children and our children’s children. Centuries and millennia will pass for some, yet they will know no death, only consciousness. From our perspective we will never know anything but life and consciousness. Death won’t even be an illusion: it won’t be AT ALL. And that is because "The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything."

    The Apostle Paul was familiar with this verse, seeing that he earnestly studied the Hebrew Scriptures. With relation to this concept that "…the dead know not anything," Paul made the following statements:

    "For we know, That if the tent of our earthy dwelling be taken down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, aionian, in the heavens. For indeed to this we are groaning, earnestly desiring to be invested with that habitation of our which is from [not ‘in’] heaven: surely, having been invested, we shall not be found destitute.

    For, indeed, those being in the tent are groaning, being oppressed; in which we desire not to be divested [naked], but invested [clothed], that the mortal may be absorbed by LIFE. Now He Who has produced this for this same thing is that God Who has given to us the pledge of the Spirit.

    Therefore, being always confident, and knowing that being at home in the body [our body, in the flesh] we are from home [our real home, our immortal home], away from the Lord; for we are walking by Faith, not by sight [‘Blessed are they that have NOT seen, and yet have believed’ John 20:29] But we are confident, and well-pleased rather to be separated from the body, and TO BE [not instantly, but at a future time] at home [with our new spiritual bodies like Christ’s] with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:1-8, Emphatic Diaglott).

    Yes, Paul knew that once he died the next waking moment would be in resurrection with a new body (I Cor. 15:49), and although it would happen in an instant (from this life to the next life without missing a heart beat), in the twinkling of an eye (less than a second), nonetheless, it would have to wait until "the LAST TRUMP’ (I Cor. 15:51). But to Paul from his perspective, it would only be but a moment in time, seeing that, "the living KNOW that they shall die, but the dead KNOW NOT ANYTHING."

    "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that SLEPT" (I Cor. 15:20).

    Soon we too shall be like Him and see our Creator as He is:

    "Beloved now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall BE LIKE HIM; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as HE is pure" (I John 3:2-3)

    Make no mistake: death is an enemy, but it is "being ABOLISHED" (I Cor. 15:26) by the One who has already had victory over it. And although we will never experience being dead, we certainly experience the loss of our loved ones who have died, and they will experience loss when we die.

    So take courage: If you are reading this little article then you are alive, and that is all you will EVER KNOW… LIFE!

    http://bible-truths.com/death.htm
    "Christianity began as a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. When it went to Athens, it became a philosophy. When it went to Rome, it became an organization. When it went to Europe, it became a culture. When it came to America, it became a business."

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by juststartn View Post
    I know you said that you are not Catholic. But the Church holds that someone who commits suicide is, well, effectively operating under diminished capacity. That there is some form of mental illness at work. And given that, that we cling to the mercy of the One who sees-and understands-all.

    I know that it has been a while, but you have my sympathies on your loss...

    Rachel
    Let me build on what JS said above and add that if believers who clung to Christ crumbled under "diminished capacity" where they no longer had the capacity TO cling to Christ...because they were THAT diminished,... don't you think God would know this?
    We wanted a FIGHTER. We got a fighter in Trump. He will not take anything laying down. Trump or Bust.




  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by lake rat View Post
    Thank you both for your quick replies, although it took me more than 13 years to face the question. I can't help but think that God knew the terrible pain that she was in and forgave her...but (yea, there's always a but) I hear so much of the one sin that can't be forgiven. I guess my heart and my head have conflicts of what I will not know until I am there.

    And yes, I still pray for my mother after all these years....
    The unforgivable sin is not murder, which is what you are doing when you kill someone. In killing yourself, you are still killing one of God's children. For someone to do that while in a sound mind would put them in a perilous situation IMO. However, God is totally fair and He is the only One that knows our heart and mind. I am sure He understands when someone is pushed over the mental brink by pain and anguish. Has anyone of sound mind ever killed himself? I really doubt it.

  10. #10
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    I've always felt like this about it. The Bible says it's not His will that any perish, therefore if you pray for their salvation, you are praying in His will. If you pray His will, your prayers will be answered.
    You know how when you dream, it seems to last for hours or even days, but it actually only lasts seconds? I think that in the seconds before death, there is ample time for salvation. That is why I have no problem praying for salvation for those who are already dead. God exists outside time, He can answer prayers years before you ever pray them.

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