Hi all,
There are many documented cases of Christians in ancient Rome, so miserable in this life and yearning for heaven, turning themselves into the authorities for arrest, knowing they would be killed. Did they commit suicide? Suicide is defined as ‘The act of intentionally causing one’s own death.’ It is the murder of self. Is it forgivable by God?
A woman age 42, married with 2 teenagers, had bravely fought cancer for 2 years. She confided in me: “John, please tell my husband and the church to stop praying for me. I’m not going to get further treatment, the last 2 weeks have been so amazing in the Lord, I am tired of fighting it and just want to go home to heaven.”
We talked to her husband together, and he agreed not to press her to keep fighting. She died within a few weeks. Did she commit suicide by refusing treatment and just wanting to ‘go home’?
A young man I knew battled mental illness, seeing demons on fences and shrubs as he drove along the road, and would try to run them over, totaling vehicles and destroying fences, mailboxes, and landscaping in the several times he did that. His illness was driving him to destruction, and one day we got word that at a curve of the road, he drove straight, hitting an embankment and dying instantly.
When I asked the Father about what that spirit was to cause him to do that, He said, “The spirit of suicide.” Knowing the young man, I’m sure he saw a demon and tried to run over it with his truck – that spirit literally led him off the road to his death. But was it suicide just because the demon behind his actions was a spirit of suicide, but didn’t actually cause him to put a gun to his head or overdose on medicines or something like that?
To his parents and everyone else, it was just a tragic 1 vehicle accident. The Sunday after his funeral, in the midst of our worship service, my eyes were opened to the Lord’s realm and there stood that young man, grinning widely happy as could be, worshipping along with us. 2 others saw him as well. Then after a few seconds, he was gone. Th e Lord did that to give assurance he was with Him, and doing well in heaven.
Is a person who smokes cigarettes committing slow suicide? Is the alcoholic drinking to the point of liver damage and perhaps the loss of marriage and jobs along the way, committing slow suicide? What about the anorexic girl starving herself or the glutton who eats themselves to death? Do we label their habits and lifestyle as something other than just ‘destructive’, to include ‘suicidal’? Suicide is understood to be a single act of self-murder, but many live self-destructive lifestyles over decades in a slow spiral towards death.
What is the difference?
What is the difference between ‘Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends’ of John 15;13, and someone knowingly living in a self-destructive way?
Is the act of laying down one’s life for another suicide? Wasn’t John 15:13 a veiled reference the Lord made of Himself going to the cross? He did so on purpose. How was that not suicide? Where do we draw the line?
Most people who commit suicide have thought about it for a long time
A middle aged woman showed me the scars from cutting on her forearms and wrists. She confirmed a word of knowledge that I had spoken during a church service, that a woman was there whose mother had told her when she was 12: “You’re not pretty and not very smart, so you’ll have to work hard in life to get ahead.”
The Father had told me she believed what her mother said, and to her it was truth. Those words to a fragile 12 year old just going through puberty and struggling with self image as things changed within her, had deep consequences. She was discouragement, then despondency, then hope left, replaced by anger and depression, then self-hate and thoughts of suicide. As a teen she began cutting herself. More than 20 years later, at that Wednesday night service, she got free. Months later I saw her and she confirmed she was still free, knowing she was loved and loving herself.
The difference was the love of the Father; that she for once in her life, knew down in her spirit and in her mind, that she was unconditionally loved by the Father, and then she could move herself. But on a practical level, suicide had entered her life through a long series of hurts, disappointments, condemnation, and hopelessness.
If she had taken her life, would she have gone to hell?
I was speaking at a little country church in the hills of west central Tennessee one Sunday morning. When I looked out over the congregation of about 40 I saw a woman sitting with her children occupying a pew about 2/3 of the way back. Above her I suddenly saw a picture of a house’s front door, with a porch, and a man sitting there with a gun in his hand. Next to that vision was the same man in heaven, looking at his family and expressing to his wife how sorry he was for the pain he had caused her and their children, and how he looked forward to the day they would all be together again.
Then the Father said to me. “This man committed suicide on that porch. He had battled alcoholism and depression for years, in part because he wanted to provide more for his family, but always struggled. Tell her he is with me and well, and looks forward to them being together again.”
I did exactly that, explained exactly what I saw, and she burst into tears, said it was just as I saw, and so thankful because she was very afraid he was in hell. She understood ‘and well’ to mean mentally and emotionally well, and was very thankful to the Lord.
She was able to forgive herself and him, and have peace all will be well in the end. She had been condemning herself for not trying harder to help him. He was born again, but alcoholic. She had been full of condemnation and guilt – and was so relieved he was in heaven, sobbing heavily, at having the weight lifted from her.
I’ve had several times over the years the Father has given me a vision and/or word about someone who committed suicide being in heaven. But can we find answers in scripture about suicide and the thoughts that lead up to such a decision? That is for next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at John@cwowi.org
