Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT
## Acts 16:25-34 | Reformation Covenant Church | Pastor Dennis Tuuri

found in the 16th chapter of the book of Acts. Going to focus on one particular verse, but we’ll begin reading at verse 25 and read through verse 34. Please stand for the reading of God’s command word to us. Acts 16, beginning at verse 25. And this picks up the story that you probably are familiar with, the Philippian jailer. Paul and Silas have been imprisoned and the jailer has been charged repeated twice before we get to this portion of the text to keep them in jail.

Beginning at verse 25 then of Acts 16. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bands were loosed. And 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.

But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” And they spake unto him the word of the Lord and all that were in his house.

And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized. He and all his straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced believing in God with all his house. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text of your scriptures, your holy word. And we pray that you would use this word now. I pray, Lord God, you would give me clarity of thought and speech.

And may we all be a church that has a circumcised open ear to hear the things of your scriptures that we might respond with true godly religion. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

And the little ones, this is an election day sermon, I guess. It was a tradition or a practice of the early colonialist period of American history where the pastors would preach election day sermons near an election that was going to be held to elucidate, to make clear godly principles from the Bible, godly truths from the Truthgiver, the Lord Jesus Christ who is truth, as it relates to civil government.

And the idea is not that this is like another little section of our lives that we can talk to from the Bible, but that our lives are a whole and that if we understand that there are one whole piece and that God’s people are really the central focus of his vision in a culture, then there’s a relationship between what the church believes or doesn’t believe and what happens in the civil government round about us.

We lead whether we understand it or not. We do. And we’ll see that today. So, I want to talk today a little bit about the election that we’re now in the midst of in our state in Oregon. It’s a mail in election. So, we don’t have a day anymore. But, in any event, I want to talk a little bit about one of the two statewide ballot measures, Measure 51. Now, we’ve addressed this somewhat. You know, you’ve had these voter guides available to you, etc.

But I want to take a little more time and address this very important issue. In 1994, three years ago, the electorate of Oregon took on a national lead—not in a good thing but in a very bad thing—by passing a bill or not a bill, an initiative. In other words, it was the initiative of the people. They gathered signatures, got put on the ballot and then people voted in favor by a majority of saying that from now on it’s okay for a physician, a doctor to help someone kill themselves in our state. Okay.

Now, that’s been subject to some legal battles for the last three years, and it now appears that we’re not going to be able to change that in the courts. So, there well may they may well already be people beginning to kill themselves with the doctor’s help because of this law that’s been passed. Don’t know that exactly, but the just the latest appeal was heard—or rather, was denied—a week or so ago.

Well, the legislature, controlled by the Republican party with a very strong influence of particularly right to life in the context of the legislature, passed a bill referring to the people. You know, you have initiatives of the people, then you got referrals from the legislature. This is a referral from the legislature we’re going to vote on this week or the next couple of weeks. The legislature said, “Let’s send that back to the people. We think they might want to rethink this thing. We hope they want to rethink it. We hope they want to change their minds and say, ‘No, people shouldn’t have somebody help them kill themselves.’” So, that’s what I want to talk about today is that issue.

This, as I said, is a national prominent issue. This—the country is—it’s not that what we do will either say yes or no to the entire country but it does have an effect as various states consider adopting similar laws. This is the trend. It’s a trend line that’s begun and it’s a horrific terrible trend line as we shall see as we go through some of these scriptures today. National importance and we want to stress at the outset the sufficiency of God’s word in addressing this issue.

We’ve been talking with the kids and some of the parents in the Belgian confession class about general and special revelation. Well, you know, another difference between those two is that general revelation, you can’t really figure out what the right thing to do is in terms of legal systems just by general revelation. You need God’s special word. And that word is sufficient. It’s all we need to be able to understand principles to apply not just to our lives personally or as a church, but to political action. What how government should be framed is determined by the word of God.

And yes, we’re trying to legislate morality in one sense of the term. All laws are morality put into force through civil means. You ever think about that? Everybody’s got a morality—could be good or bad, biblical, non-biblical. And a law says we think that it’s not moral to kill someone. So, we’re going to have a law trying to legislate that morality. Now, it doesn’t mean you can legislate people into being Christians or actually really good in the sight of God, but you can restrain people by enacting laws that reflect a morality that is biblical.

And that’s what we’re going to say is the word of God is sufficient for this issue. And we’re going to look to that word.

This is one of the most important things I have to say. That as you address this issue, and I pray to God you will—at the end of this sermon see a need to address this issue with your friends and relatives as occasion provides—that you’ll do it from a distinctively biblical Christian perspective. I had a talk with one of you this last week and some element of this person’s life is being commended by another person and you know the person that was talking to me about this—the reason they were acting in this way because the scriptures say so, they’re trying to honor God. Ultimately it’s very important that we tell people that we’re not any better than them, our standard is no better than their standard if it’s just our standard, but the word of God giving glory to God is what we’re trying to do in everything that we do. And it’s so important that we get there.

You know, if you if you just talk about suicide and assisted suicide because well it’s pragmatic, it works this way or it doesn’t work this way or—just I think how much it’s going to do economically to the country and stuff—you know, it’s okay to talk about those things but ultimately we must take these conversations back to the demands of God’s word and the hope that God’s word places in front of men. It’s hard for us, isn’t it? I don’t know why it’s so hard for us but it is. We don’t want to be stigmatized. We don’t want to think bad people think we’re nuts or some kind of Jesus freak or something.

But boy, we need to try to work every conversation into an evangelistic opportunity to speak not according to what we think is right, but “This is what the Bible says as I understand it on this issue.” So please, please hear that portion of this service. Don’t argue on the basis of supposed common ground. Here’s the true common ground: You want to argue on the basis of the common ground that we as believers have with unbelievers.

It is that all men know that God is the Lord of this universe and Jesus Christ. If they’ve heard from the scriptures, but even if they haven’t heard the scriptures, they know that God is the rule of this universe and the Bible is his word. We don’t have to prove that. They know that’s the common ground we have—is that men know that God is and has revealed himself and they don’t want to think about it. And if you let them get away without thinking about it, you give up the true common ground we have with unbelievers, which is that they know and they’re rebelling against God when they support such ungodly measures.

They need to hear that now. They need to hear the rest of the scriptures as well about Christian hope, which we’ll get into. But please, please, please use these opportunities to bring the sufficient word. It’s all that we need for these conversations.

Now, suicide and physician assisted suicide are two different but very related things obviously, but understand at the get-go, we’re going to talk about suicide side by side. But this bill isn’t just isn’t saying that someone can kill themselves. It says someone else can kill them indirectly. Someone else can hook them up to a death machine and let them push the plug. You see, it’s not just about suicide. It’s about people being allowed to kill someone else. So, they’re distinct but related issues.

Now, this is a very topical issue for us. It’s very relevant. I’m going to rely today on a couple of sermons written by Samuel Miller in 1805. And he said, and that it was a very important issue because suicides were on the increase. Apparently in 1805 there were 70,000 people in New York City and within three months just prior to these sermons nine people had committed suicide out of 70,000 people in three months. I don’t know how that report relates to today but suicide is perpetually a problem in a culture that is not explicitly Christian.

It’s an important issue. It’s a relevant issue for us. Obviously we’re going to have all kinds of people killing themselves if this law is not overturned by passing Measure 51. Measure 51 would repeal what happened in 1994. So we say yes, we want to repeal it. It’s a relevant issue for us because of what’s going on in our culture.

It’s also in the providence of God. And if you don’t understand this, just don’t worry about it. But if you do, take it to heart that this issue has been made very relevant this week for some of us—very relevant this week for some of us. It’s a relevant issue. It’s a relevant issue in the context of the Christian church. It was a relevant issue to me a number of years back when the man who was probably undoubtedly more responsible than anybody else for causing me to come to a love of reformation theology, to who was the first one who got me to homeschool, put me on the course really to, and Howard as well and other people here at this group when we first formed up as a church—that man killed himself a number of years back leaving a lot of children and a loving wife.

It’s a very relevant issue. Don’t think it can’t happen to me, can’t happen to my kids. Not true.

Samuel Miller—these two sermons were published as a pamphlet—and he actually meant it particularly to be heard and read by children, by the teens of the church because he said if you get into these long-established habits that lead to suicidal tendencies and you’re an adult, real hard to break. But if you as a child, as a young man or young woman, growing up understand what the sources of suicidal thinking are and how unbiblical it is and you’re going to correct it. So he said you know, children of the church listen, pay heed, this is of vital interest to us, and I would say parents pay heed, instruct your children in these principles and truths of the scriptures because otherwise they may well join the ranks of many Christians who have attempted or have actually killed themselves.

It’s a very relevant issue for us today.

Now, what I want to do is first look at the text that we just read from and then look at several biblical examples of attempted suicides or desired suicides and then draw some truths out of that and then some application for us. Okay. Samuel Miller said this. He said, “It’s my design from this passage to offer some remarks on the crime of suicide. A crime of the deepest dye. A crime which has become alarmingly frequent in our land and in our city. A crime therefore against which it becomes those who would declare the whole counsel of God to bear public and solemn testimony.”

It’s relevant not just for our children. It’s relevant to our culture to speak to, take this moment, this window of opportunity where the whole state is focused on this issue to speak solemnly and clearly from the word of God to as many people as we can on this issue of the day. And we hope that the happy result of such activity will be the happy result of the apostle Paul speaking to the Philippian jailer of his need to avoid and not commit suicide, not to engage himself in self murder. All right, let’s turn to the text then as an example of I think of what we first can see very clearly. This won’t take much time. This is a very obvious thing that Paul does.

The Philippian jailer is in great despair. Now he’s imagine Paul and Silas, they’ve been thrown into prison. This guy is their keeper in terms of prison. He is their enemy from one sense of the term. But Paul and Silas, when confronted with the opening of the jail cells and now the jailer himself is going to kill himself—what do they do? What would you do? What would some people maybe imply that they would do by the way they write or the way they talk?

Yeah. Now, not only are we going to get free, our enemies are going to be killed, too. They’re going to kill themselves. Praise God. That’s what some people would say. Not us, hopefully. Not the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was always looking for opportunities to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul was an evangelist in all that he did. And so should we be—not, you know, he had a special calling—but all of us should be looking for an opportunity to speak to the hope that lies within us.

Paul loved his enemies. Paul was a theocrat. He was applying the love of God. The law of God says, you know, Jesus said, “They say hate, some say hate your enemies.” I say, “Love your enemies. Do good to those who treat you badly.” You know, Jesus wasn’t changing the law. He was going back to the law as it is and always stood in terms of the Old Testament law. Leviticus tells us, Leviticus 19, he says, “Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

And then in Proverbs 24, the wisdom of God: “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small, and thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain—you have an obligation. The scriptures tell us from the Old Testament and the New Testament—to when you see people about ready to perish to help them out, to try not to let them die in some particular way, and to love our enemies.

Jesus wasn’t correcting the Bible. He was correcting the misrepresentations of the Bible in the context of his day and age. He was correcting the evil teachings of the Pharisees who taught a hatred for the gentile world, which is exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to be doing. They were supposed to be priests of the Gentiles. And yeah, we want to hate God’s enemies. We don’t hate our enemies.

And we want to try to even with God’s enemies to see their conversion first and foremost. When we pray imprecatory prayers relative to abortionists, we always want to keep in mind that we hope that the judgments that God brings them to salvation. Paul was a theocrat, loved God’s law. Paul was an evangelist, and Paul was a postmillennialist. So I say Paul lived out his faith in every bit of his life and Paul was confident.

Remember we said when we talked about the five points of Calvinism, the canon of Dort, reprobation—you know, the decree that God reprobates, send some men to hell. Reprobation serves election. There’s not a balance scale where as many people are going to go to hell as heaven or less people go to heaven than hell. No, most people God is going to save. The world is covenantally elect in Jesus Christ. So Paul’s ethic, his obedience to the law has to do with Paul’s eschatology.

He looks not for the demonstration ultimately of God’s judgment and wrath and reprobation. He sees those things as serving election, in the covenantal election of the world. He presupposes guys who are going to hear the gospel and repent. Now, they don’t all do it, but that was his view, I think, and that should be our view as well.

The Apostle Paul doesn’t act in an untutored way. He acts in a very biblical way here. What does he do? Well, point B of number one, Paul commands the despairing Philippian jailer clearly and forcefully to not kill himself. “Do thyself no harm.” And the text says he said it loudly. Didn’t want it not to be heard. Didn’t want to just say it so the fact that his conscience feel better. “Oh, I said my Christian deal and I don’t feel so guilty.” No, he wanted it to be heard by the Philippian jailer.

“Do thyself no harm.” And if you know people that are considering suicide and you know a culture that is so sin sick that it wants to now pass a bill saying, “Yeah, do it.” And we’re going to encourage you to do it through physicians being able to help you do it painlessly, we want to tell this culture, “Do thyself no harm.” We want to command them based upon God’s word and their obedience to their creator to not engage in the sin of suicide.

But Paul didn’t leave it there. He says, “We’re all here.” He knew that this Philippian jailer was on the verge of killing himself because of despair, a loss of hope. And he gave the guy hope. “We’re all here.” You don’t got to kill yourself. Things are okay. Paul answers the jailer’s despair with Christian hope. And I say we should be like Paul. I say that we should use the opportunity of Measure 51 to live out our faith, to do evangelism in the context of this public policy issue—loving our enemies.

We don’t want most people in this state who are in radical rebellion to God to die. We don’t want people with AIDS to die. We want them to repent. We want them to choose life and we want God to heal them. That’s what we want. Now, ultimately, God has his sovereign disposition and we agree with that in the case of those that eventually end up in hell. But our desire is to do evangelism and to love our enemies even as we love our neighbors.

And so we want to do that. And I say that’s what we’re required to do by this example of Paul and by the commands of scripture. We are to speak clearly and forcefully in our culture to say that suicide is sinful. Not just doesn’t work, not just wrong, not just a bad idea—sinful. It’s good to use biblical terminology. It violates God’s law. The sixth commandment says, “Thou shalt not kill.” And it doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not kill somebody else.” It says “Thou shalt not kill.”

And the implication is any man including yourself. If you kill yourself, you’ve killed someone. And not in the use of civil government, not in a war. You’ve done it against the sixth commandment. So it’s a sin. It’s a violation of God’s word. But we also want very much to meet the world’s despair with Christian hope, proving a real and dynamic presence in our culture.

Now, this is a little bit of allegorization of the text. Okay, I understand that Paul had a very specific situation and he was saying “we are here, we are present” in the context of this particular jailer’s thing. But what I’m saying is I believe it’s a biblical truth that we, our presence in the world is to live lives of hope and of optimism and of courage as a result of that in the midst of a world that, as it moves away from Christ, moves in terms of despair.

Hope is lost in our culture. My brother Mike several years ago up at the Moscow conference—these conferences are great, aren’t they? People pray for you, I guess, when you go to these things. It’s wonderful to see, you know, the group that went to Moscow, Doug and Richard and Howard, being so energized by that—and my trip to Boston. Great thing. Well, by the way, a couple years ago, I was up there in Moscow attending the Doug Wilson conference. He was in a motel room and he was watching a Kurt Cobain video on TV, you know, a rock video. And for those of you who don’t know, he’s the one that shot himself in the head, took his head off with a shotgun.

Her brother started to weep. And you may say, “Well, that’s weird, you know.” Well, what he was weeping about is that all too often the Christian church is not present in the context of the culture with a hopeful message. We’re cloistered off, not wanting to be infected with the world about us. Now, there’s an importance of that. But you see, we are to be present in our culture offering a message of hope. Kurt Cobain, those songs of Nirvana, much of the popular music today, it is so nihilistic. It’s so without hope.

If a man doesn’t have hope, what does he care if he’s sinned? If there’s no hope of anything different, we need to live lives of difference, of hope and optimism in the context of our culture. “We’re here.” You see, our hope and we can bring an answer to your despair. Therefore, “do thyself no harm.” We command the world, but we put the presence of the gospel of Christ in the context of the world as well. Okay. So, that’s basically the message of I think that we can take from Acts 16 into this particular arena.

Now, we’re not just stuck with Acts 16, though. There’s all kinds of scriptures about this issue. The scripture we read for the call to worship, “choose life, don’t choose death,” etc. We know that the scriptures clearly teach, as I said in Exodus 20, that the sixth commandment says, “don’t kill,” including by implication, “don’t kill yourself.” And physician, don’t kill that guy by helping him kill himself against the law of God.

And you know, there were a lot of ability of the judges of the Old Testament to make changes, to decide for themselves that the test penalty for some things were. But when it came to murder, they had no discretion. They had to execute the guy. Okay? So, it’s a very serious offense. It’s at the head, if you know what I mean. And the second table, the sins against men that reflect our sins against God—two tablets of the law. People use that terminology: sins against God, the first four or five, depending on how you focus it, and sins against man.

And I believe that the commandment not to kill is at the head of the second table where it tells us what we should do. How do we love our neighbor? We don’t kill them. How do we love ourselves properly biblically? We don’t kill ourselves. Okay? So, that’s clear from scripture. But look at these examples. Do again, we’ll go we’ll go through this quickly, but first of all, there were successful suicides given to us in the scriptures.

King Saul in 1 Samuel 31: you know, he’s out there battling the Philistines and it’s going bad and Jonathan his son has died and the other some other guys have died and the Philistines are about to overtake him. Pretty despairing situation. He tells his armor bearer, “run me through with my sword.” Nope, not going to do it. He takes off. Saul then takes his own sword and sets it up so he can fall on his sword. Falls on his sword to kill himself. Successful suicide.

We’ll see a little bit more about that in a couple of minutes. But here we have wicked King Saul, right? The reprobate king who sinned and didn’t repent of his sin, who God is taking away in judgment. He successfully kills himself.

Secondly, Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 17. Ahithophel was David’s counselor. When Absalom, one of David’s sons, rebels against him, Ahithophel gives false counsel and he turns his counsel to be used by Absalom now to rebellion against David. But when Ahithophel sees that his counsel wasn’t taken and that he’s going to be seen now as the traitor that he really was, he goes out and hangs himself. He sets his house in order. A logical man, a good counselor, sets his house in order, kills himself. So what example is that of somebody who successfully kills himself? Why? It’s a turncoat. It’s a traitor. It’s a wicked counselor who doesn’t serve the king correctly. It’s a bad guy.

Zimri in 1 Kings 16: kind of an interesting case. Zimri comes along and there’s another king in place and he says, “I want to be king. I’ll just kill him.” And he does. He kills the king at the time and he reigns for all of seven days—the seven-day king of the Old Testament. And then Omri is out there. Omri is going to form this big long dynasty beginning with his wicked son Ahab. Omri is not really a good guy either, but Omri comes up and you and Zimri is king and they besiege him round about and when Zimri sees that he isn’t going to be able to survive—for more, for he won’t last out the eighth day as king—he sets on fire the king’s house and burns it down with him in it.

Now that’s a perverted fella. Not only does he kill himself, but in his envy for the role of king that he had usurped to himself through murder, he burns down the house of the king with him. See bad wicked guys here. Wicked King Saul, the example of the fallen apostate king. Ahithophel, the example of the fallen and apostate counselor. And Zimri, another fallen apostate, really perverted king.

And then finally in Matthew 27 and other places of scripture, Judas, the great betrayer of all time. As we know, killed himself.

Well, those are the kind of examples that God puts before us if we’re considering suicide. Do you want to join that company? Is that you want to be with that group?

Look, but on the other hand, let’s recognize that it is not beyond thought that men of God can have suicidal thoughts. Look at the guys who requested it—it seems at least suicide. Job in chapter 2 of the book of Job, 9 verse 21 and other places in those first couple—first two or three chapters of the book of Job. Now, by the way, Job is a great model in discussion with people about suicide when—”Well, you don’t know how much pain I’m in.” Job did. “Well, you don’t know how big my fortunes have been reversed.” Job did. “Well, you don’t know what a terrible support system my family has been to me.” Job did.

Job went through the reversal in one day: rich, well-respected. People looked up to him, known in the community, a ruler among rulers, great guy, lots of children, much wealth, and one day all of it taken away in the providence of God. And then when that doesn’t work, Satan goes to God and he says—I mean, work in the sense of trying to get Job to curse God. It’s interesting the terminology. Satan goes to God and he says, “Put thy hand forth now and touch his bone and his flesh.” You know the story—the boils, the terrible pain and discomfort. Probably it probably appeared to be a fatal illness to all suspecting people.

And then, but what’s interesting is that when this comes to Job, God then does the last thing: the bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh—his wife turns against him. And his wife in verse 9 says, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Renounce God and die. Kill yourself. Curse God. End up dead.” So the very support system he had from his wife—the most pleasant of all counselors is supposed to be to us, most godly of all help—turned on him. A man completely isolated in pain, loss, etc. And Job gives way to this to some extent. He gives way to the temptation. He says in chapter 3, he says verse 20, “Wherefore is life given to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soul who long for death?”

Talking about himself, he longs for death, but it doesn’t come. “I want to die. I want God to kill me. I want to kill myself. I want out of this. It doesn’t come. And I dig for it more than for hid treasures who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave.” He’s looking for the way out. He is despondent and suicidal is what he is. God tells Job, “No, no, I’m not going to let you die right now, Job. No.”

Another example, Elijah. 1 Kings 19:4. Odd story. You know, you know the story. He’s had a lot of success, but old King Ahab tells Jezebel what he’s done in terms of killing the prophets and the rain comes, etc., etc., and or rather, he shuts off the rain. So, he’s having a great deal of success and whatnot. And then Jezebel sends some kind of message to him that just I don’t know what it does to him, but he takes off a running and he ends up also suicidal.

The scriptures tell us. We read in 1 Kings 19, “he himself went on a day’s journey into the wilderness. And he came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die and said, ‘It’s enough now, oh Jehovah. Take away my life for I am not better than my father’s.’” An interesting insight. We could spend a lot of time on it. We won’t. But he was aware of his sin. I don’t know what—maybe it was fear. I don’t know what it was. Sin he was aware of. “I’m no better than my father’s. I’ve sinned. I got a bad attitude. I’m running away.” I don’t know what it was his sin. Aware of his sin. And he wants to kill himself. And God says, “No, you’re not going to die yet. I’m not done with you yet.”

And we’ll see a little bit later what God says in response to Elijah. God, the man of Elijah desires death. And then Moses in Numbers 11:14 and 15, the people are, you know, complaining. They want bread to eat and quail and they want good stuff to eat like back in Egypt. And Moses just can’t take it anymore. And he says in chapter 11 of Numbers, “I’m not able to bear all this people alone. It is too heavy for me. If thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand. If I have found favor in thy sight, and let me not see my wretchedness. Kill me. I’m suicidal. I want to die,” he says. And again with Moses, God says, “No.”

And then finally, Jonah. Jonah’s in a different case. He sees God save the Ninevites, and he’s not happy. He gets mad when the Ninevites repent. He says, “Yeah, this is just what I knew would happen. That’s why I ran away from you, God. I didn’t want to see those wicked people. I didn’t want to see that Philippian jailer. I didn’t want to see that AIDS patient repent and be given life by you. I to see your enemies crushed and I knew that you’re this compassionate God.” He got mad as a result of his anger over that.

Now understand folks, these Ninevites were bad dudes. They would go in and they’d conquer a people and they’d pile up heads—big pile of heads at the doorway to the city. And it could be, you know, we don’t know, maybe Jonah had relatives, friends, people that he loved who’d been slaughtered by these marauding hordes of Ninevites. They were terrible people, the Assyrians. They ruled by terror. I They were awful, bloodthirsty—Hitler worse than Hitler. Like that Pope we’ll hear about this Friday night. 50,000 Protestant reformers massacred—the two days of the St. Bartholomew Massacre.

Horrific story. Pope. Yeah, let’s get those bad guys. And strikes a medal in the honor of the guys that killed the Huguenots. And he celebrates a mass. He’s a happy guy. What if then you know you’re you’re someone who your family was killed, your wife was raped, your son was quartered while yet alive by this Pope, and then he repents when you preach the gospel to him. And God says, “I’m going to bless him now.” See, that’s the way it was for Jonah. And Jonah couldn’t take it. So he says, and he says in verse 10, he says—I’m sorry, in verse 3 of Jonah chapter 4—”therefore now, oh Jehovah, take I beseech thee my life from me. It’s better for me to die than to live.” Jehovah said, “Doest thou well to be angry?” Nope. Not going to take your life today.

So, we have godly men who are suicidal in the context of the scriptures, but they don’t do it. They request it. They want it. They’re tending that way, but God says no. And then we’ve got the people that are successful at suicide are an ungodly lot. Wicked kings, perverted counselors, a horrific king, and then the great treacherous one of all—Judas.

See the clearness of the path here that the scriptures lay out. And there is actually at least one case of assisted suicide as well. And that’s found in the story of King Saul. Because if you go on to read 2 Samuel chapter 1, what you find out is when Saul fell on his sword, didn’t die. Didn’t die right away. No, God’s not done with him yet. He’s laying on this sword kind of up in the air, I suppose, struggling. And what happens is in the first chapter, 2 Samuel, a young Amalekite man runs up back to the camp of King David and says, “Uh, King David, how’s it going? How’s the battle going?” Bad.

Not King David at that time, David. And I guess he had been anointed. Well, in any event, he goes to David, and he says, “How’s the battle going?” And he says, “Well, it’s going bad. Saul and his son are are dead.” Well, how do you know that? How do you know Saul’s dead? Well, I was running by the hill there, and there was Saul struggling on his sword. Obviously kill himself, but still dying, you know, a bad deal.

And he asked me if I would kill him, if I’d run my sword through him to finish his misery, a lot of pain and suffering. He asked if I would assist him in his suicide. And I did it. You know, he wasn’t going to live. David says, “Where are you from?” “I’m a sojourner in the land, an Amalekite. I know the law. I’m a sojourner,” he says. And David says, “You lifted a hand against God’s anointed. You come this guy.” So, the only illustration we have of assisted suicide is put to death immediately by righteous King David for helping a man kill himself.

And I know that there’s special circumstances there. It’s the Lord’s anointed. But still, it’s an example to us and I think it’s a biblical example and a true example that even if it’s not the Lord’s anointed, it is a violation of the sixth commandment. No matter how painful and suffering a person is going through, mercy killing is killing. And is murder and it deserves what this young man got—the death penalty.

So, the scriptures give us these examples of what suicide is and isn’t and who ends up committing it and who doesn’t. What’s the biblical truth that we can take from this? On your outline, I say that suicide is sin. That’s what I’ve been stressing over and over again. It’s sin. It’s sin against ourselves. It’s sin against human dignity. It’s sin against our fellow man. And it is sin against God.

Now, I’m going to read a few quotes here from Samuel Miller’s sermon and first of all it’s it’s a sin against ourself. You know really it—that movie Unforgiven. A young man kills for the first time. He wanted to become a gunslinger and after he kills this man who was not a nice man, he’s sitting there drinking booze to put his conscience at peace and he says “boy you know I didn’t think it’d be like this” and Clint Eastwood says “yeah you know you take away all the man is, all that he ever will be and the opportunity for that fell in the future.”

That’s what you do when you kill someone. And that’s what you do to yourself. It’s a sin against yourself to kill yourself. And it’s a sin against what God in his providence and sovereignty can do with you in the context of the world. So, it’s a sin against one’s own soul to kill himself. Maybe you’re out of money. Well, how do you know what God’s going to do? Job went from complete devastating immense riches to devastating poverty and back to immense riches in the providence of God. Maybe you’ve got an incurable illness—or so you think.

Well, cures come along all the time. And if even if cures don’t come along, God can cure and still does to this day heals people. How do you know what your health is going to bring to you? What your life might be like if you persevere in the suffering? Well, the pain is unbearable. Well, how do you know but what the grace of God may give you sufficient ability to go through that suffering and pain and actually may make it quite a light thing for you? It may as a result of that make you a real ministry in the life of other people.

Well, to kill yourself is to cut off all those potential results in your life. It is self murder. It is a sin against oneself. It’s a sin against dignity. I like what Miller said here because you know you hear a lot of people talk about “death with dignity” is what this is all about. And Miller says this. He said “dignity. He said does it comport—excuse me—does suicide comport with the dignity of our nature? Does it comport with the dignity of our nature to act the part of cowards, poltroons, and deserters? Is that dignified to be a coward and to be a deserter from life’s shores? Have fortitude, patience, and self-command ceased to be virtues in our day and age?”

Miller says, and we’ll ask the same thing. What is dignified about a person deciding to desert from the battle of life that God has placed him in the context of? to be a traitor to the God who created him. It is a sin against the dignity of man to say the suffering is too great or the poverty too much or the loss of love too great for me to bear. I’m bagging it. I’m cutting out. I’m leaving. That isn’t dignified. Shameful. It’s a sin against society.

This is really the heart of much of the sin in the context of our culture. Men don’t care about society. They don’t believe it. In America, we’re all individuals. It’s my life. Darn it. Leave me alone. My own deal. Well, that’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. Let me quote from Miller. He says, “No man lives to himself and to no man dieth unto himself.” See Romans 14:7. “With such persons, regardless of all the obligations which bind them to society, when they abandon the post at which they are placed, they act apart which deserves to be stigmatized as selfish, unsocial, and base. You don’t only destroy your life, you also deprive society of an important member. And with hold from society the benefits which you might have bestowed by continuing to live.

But you also inflict a positive injury by your suicide. You display a mischievous example to society and by recommending as far as the influence of your conduct reaches the same practice to others. You’re in the m—whether you—if no man is an island. We’re so interconnected. It’s amazing. When you kill yourself, you affect society in various ways. Miller went on to say “Besides the injury done to society in general, he who destroys his own life seldom fails to inflict the deepest wounds upon all who would most immediately relate to him in domestic and social life.”

So now we’re moving from general society—you know, the Jimmy Stewart kind of thing where if you kill yourself, he saw what been the effect on society of him being not ever having been born. You can take the same extension out. There’s a result to all of society if you kill yourself as well, which you can’t see, but it’s real. And now we move from general society down to your particular friends or loved ones etc. He says you inflict the deepest wounds upon all those who stand more immediately related to you.

“Say miserable man you who are complaining or contemplating rather the crime of self murder. Have you no parent the evening of whose days by this crime would be embittered and be sent down to the grave in bitterness and in gray hair? Have you no amiable partner of thy life who would be precipitated by this step into the deepest affliction? Have you no tender babes who by your desertion would be left fatherless and exposed to all the dangers of an unpitting world? Have you no brethren or sisters to share in the grief and the disgrace of your unworthy conduct?

Are there no friends who love you who would weep over your folly and sin and feel themselves wounded by your fall? In short, would the execution of your wicked purpose disturb the peace of no family? Torture no bosom of sensibility and kindness? Defraud no creditor? You owe bills. What’s going to be the effect of that guy? You kill yourself. Plunge no friend into difficulty. Rob no fellow creature of advantage or enjoyment?”

I know a man, public Christian man. He has an odd temperament. And I didn’t realize for some years till some years after I’d met him and wondered about his temperament. I found out that this particular man, he was led to the Lord after his mother committed suicide. He’s the one who discovered her. She had, I think, used a shotgun or of a gun of some type, blew her brains all over the room in which she was sitting when she killed herself.

And this fella had to go in, discover, and clean it up. Now, he’s a little different. And you would be, too. You say, “Oh, my wife get over it.” No. Uh-uh. There are huge ramifications to the psyche of the human mind in the midst of some kind of awful crime of one killing himself. The dangers of the evils of society that one does. It is a crime against society—both near society and far society—to kill yourself. And we must say to those who contemplate such things: do thyself no harm.

You’re connected. Whether you like it or not, you’re connected. And you’re not just sinning against yourself and against the dignity of man. You’re sinning against society. And you kill yourself. People are going to tell you to vote for this measure ‘cuz it’s nobody’s business but their own. That’s ridiculous. We’re interconnected and society moves as a unit. And our culture doesn’t like to admit that, but that’s the truth of God’s word.

Miller went on to say, “Stay then, guilty man. Stay your murderous hand. Extinguish not thy happiness in the hopes of a family—it may be of many families. Forbear, oh forbear, to inflict wounds which no time can heal, in which may tempt survivors to wish that you had never been born.” It’s a sin against society.

And it is, and this is the biggest reason to argue against suicide: It’s a sin against God. Job 14 says that “all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes.” He says, “Well, I wanted death, but I understand that God has appointed a time for me, and I have to live out that time.” Judge Beers was an example of that in his dying weeks and months—much suffering. He wouldn’t give up because God had appointed him a task, given him a job. Fulfill the course, run the course to the end of it. You do not faint near the finish line. You cross the finish line with all your determination and vigor.

“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” our life. Let’s not prematurely end it. It is a sin against God. Socrates, if he knew this, why don’t we today? Socrates says “it is they are just the those that commit suicide are justly the objects of divine displeasure and punishment just as just as a slave who flees from the service of his master.” God created you for a purpose—every last man, woman, and child. And to kill yourself is to is is desertion from the calling in creation of Almighty God.

“To consider man as a creature independent, free from the restraints of a divine authority, at liberty to dispose of his own life and talents without reference to the will of the creator. What is this but practical atheism? What is this but a figment of an impious imagination which though sometimes formed in minds professing to believe in the existence and providence of God, can only be cherished by a heart radically hostile to God’s character and government and secretly desirous if it were possible to haul God down from his throne.”

Now, that’s—I believe Miller was correct. That’s what the scriptures would have us know about men who radically sin against God by killing themselves, by defacing the image of God in them. It’s like they want to rip God down off the throne and they seek that through the destruction of their own life. Now, the Westminster Shorter Catechism on the sixth commandment says not only do we—when the sixth commandment—want to kill others or kill ourselves.

But we are bound by the sixth commandment to avoid the neglecting or withdrawing of lawful and necessary means of the preservation of life. The Westminster divine said in light of murder being such a horrific thing, we have to do all we can to preserve life. And that means we have to take steps to try to teach our children not to take their own life. We have to do steps to tell our culture: do thyself no harm.

And Measure 51—in voting in favor of it, I believe, is a practical application of the requirements of the sixth commandment. And as understood by the Westminster divines, that we must do all that we can to preserve life. We must—