Sucide

July 18, 2007


1Ch 10:4 KJV
(4) Then said Saul to his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. So Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.


As far as I know, this incident is the first recorded incident of suicide in the Bible (someone correct me if I am wrong), so we have to ask ourselves, why did this happen?

Saul had leaned on what he understood rather than what God wanted him to do. He went from a man who could hear God's voice to one who was consulting mediums to hear from dead people. He no longer could hear from God himself.

I intend to spend a few days looking at Saul's life and what was wrong in it that lead to this step. It is important that we know how his life ended though. He had lost hope in God. Think about that. We have hopes in our lives. Hopes that marriages will work out right, kids will grow up great, we will be settled in life in our old age, the list goes on. We also have a hope that when we die, we will be there with God. Saul had lost hope that all would work out OK because he had it in his head that the Philistines were going to kill him. Could God have gotten him out of that situation? Yes? Since he could not hear from God anymore, he could not get that hope, and so he killed himself.

I once considered suicide, years ago, had climbed up on the fence of the balcony of my apartment and was going to throw myself off. I can tell you I had lost all hope that everything was going to work out. And I was also running from God. Something inside me told me it was wrong and I climbed back down. Shortly after that I rededicated my life to Jesus.

I only say that to say this. If you see someone that seems to be in a hopeless situation, and they seem to have lost all hope, go over and talk to them and try to give them hope. God may very well working through you to keep that person alive.