k i have another ? my religion speaks specifically about the concequence of suicide,any thoughts?

Question

we have recent suspected suicide,but we loved this kid dearly,we are hoping he had time to rectify himself,what do we do for comfort?

Answer 1

I know this is long but trust me it may help you ...please read it all.......this is from Oral Roberts and his wife when their oldest son Ronnie commited suicide and he was a Pastor.......

Suicide: A Double Grief

By Evelyn Roberts

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“Mother, Ronnie is gone.”

This is the way Richard announced Ronnie’s death to me. I was working in my study at home. It was about 11:00 a.m., the morning of June 8, 1982. Oral and Richard came walking in and I knew immediately something was wrong, for they never come home at that hour.

“What’s wrong?” I questioned. “Mother, Ronnie is gone.” “What do you mean, gone?” “He’s dead, Mother.” “How?”

“The police say he shot himself.”

“No, no, Richard. Ronnie wouldn’t have done that,” I said, my mind unable to conceive of such a thing. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Besides, he didn’t even have a gun.”

Oral said, “Evelyn, the police found his body in an abandoned car with a gun beside him. They say it was a self-inflicted shot.”

“Oh, no, Oral,” I cried, “someone must have killed him. Maybe someone into drugs like he was. There must be some mistake.”

“Evelyn,” Oral said back to me with a note of finality in his voice, “we have to accept it. Ronnie killed himself.”

But I couldn’t accept it. I was absolutely devastated.

For years Ronnie had been on drugs. We knew that. We had tried every way we knew how to get him off. We had prayed with him and for him. We had sent him to a place where they tried to get him off drugs.

Ronnie never had a needle in his arm. He was always squeamish about any kind of shots. No, our son’s addiction was a common one that many people face. He was addicted to a prescription drug, which he abused until I’m sure it destroyed many of his brain cells and he couldn’t think straight. But there were periods when Ronnie seemed to be gaining victory over his problem. We certainly never dreamed that his life would end the way it did.

Dealing with the guilt


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About three months before Ronnie s death, Oral had me call him to come to our home. Oral had a special feeling that this was the night to pray with him for his complete deliverance. Ronnie came and we had a good talk and a long prayer session. He made a new commitment of his life to Jesus and seemed to be so buoyant in his spirit. We all felt it was a deliverance. But on Mother’s Day some weeks later, I went to see him because he had the flu. I knew by Ronnie’s conversation with me that he was not thinking straight and that it was difficult for him to deal with even the simplest things.

His death occurred sometime the night of June 7 and the police found his body the next morning.

It was so hard for me to accept the fact that Ronnie’s death was his own doing. This was my brilliant son who had made straight A’s in college, who had won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship which paid his way through graduate school He had been an exchange student and spent time first in Germany, then in Taiwan. He could speak seven different languages and could teach every one of them. Why would someone that gifted want to take his own life? It made no sense really. But somehow, deep, deep inside of me something told me it was true.

After the news of Ronnie’s death, the devil didn’t wait long to begin torturing us. “Imagine what people will say,” he told us. “Oral Roberts’ son kills himself. They will wonder what you did to him.”

And of course every newspaper from coast to coast carried the story. We couldn’t even have a death in our family without having our heartbreak announced to the world.

Both Oral and I had been terribly grieved when we lost Rebecca and Marshall (our daughter and son-in-law) in a plane crash several years before but this time, because of the circumstances it was different.

I know Oral was hurt to the core of his being over losing Ronnie. And the way he handled it was to close himself off in a room for the rest of the day after we heard what had happened. Satan began his attacks on me when I went to bed that night. “If only you had given him more money, he wouldn’t have done this awful deed,” he whispered to me. Or “If you had offered to let him move back home with you, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Ronnie was 38 years old and had a wife and two children. He had supported himself and his family for many years before he recently had had to take out bankruptcy because of the economy. So I knew Satan was telling me things that weren’t reasonable. And still, he tried to make me feel guilty.

I wrestled with him every night wondering if it really was my fault. “Your son went straight to hell, you know that,” said Satan. “Everyone who commits suicide goes to hell.” And he really had me believing his lies until it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my body.

In order to keep my sanity, I started a thorough search of the Scriptures to find out what the Bible says about suicide. I couldn’t find anywhere that it said the victims would automatically go to hell just for the act of committing suicide alone.

I knew Ronnie had given his heart to Jesus. I knew that although his mind might have been confused, his heart was clean and I kept arguing with Satan that he was wrong about Ronnie’s fate.

Praise God, He always has someone near who will help you if you are willing to accept the help. Brother Kenneth Hagin called us one day and said he had a word from the Lord for us, so Oral and I asked him to come over to our home.

He showed us I Corinthians 5:4,5 (NIV), which says, “When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”

The King James Version says, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

Oh, what a load lifted from my mind and my heart as Brother Hagin told us of other such cases where he had been called in to pray for loved ones who had lost someone to suicide.

Oral and I wept and praised the Lord with Brother and Sister Hagin as the confirmation came that our son was with Jesus.

Several days later our dear friend Velmer Gardner came to us (sent by the Lord) with another Scripture, 1 Corinthians 4:5 (NIV) “Judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.” That took care of the question burning in our hearts of WHY? Why would Ronnie have done such a thing? It was and still is such a comfort to know that God knows and someday He will tell us the reason (“in the day of the Lord”).

After these Scriptures were given to us, I just had it out with Satan one night. I told him I was not guilty of any wrongdoing that had directly led to Ronnie’s death. I had loved my son and taught him God’s Word just as I had my three other children. Then I commanded Satan to leave in the Name of Jesus. I even opened my bedroom door and told him to get out and never to return. And in my spirit I felt his evil presence leave.

Now that the guilt was over, I began to feel a very deep grief in its place. Ronnie was our oldest son and he had so much potential for a rich full life. He could have given the gospel to people in lands where he wouldn’t have had to use an interpreter as his dad and his younger brother Richard have had to do. Wonderfully gifted human resources were wasted in his death, and I hurt not only for myself, but for my husband; for Richard and Roberta who had already lost a sister and now their older brother; for Ronnie’s wife Carol; for his children Rachel and Damon; and for what the Body of Christ had missed.

Oral said to me one day, “Evelyn, do you remember—when we were hurting so badly over our loss of Rebecca how we planted a tremendous seed of faith out of our own need for healing and believed that God would use it to take away our grief?”

“Yes, Oral. I remember we did a television program to share our feelings with others who had lost loved ones. It was the hardest thing I ever did, but it helped to alleviate the grief.”

“Well, I feel it’s terribly important for us again to plant a big seed of faith now, because we have a need to get over this awful grief before it crushes the life out of us.”

I thought about it for a moment and knew that my husband was speaking out of his spirit. “Okay, honey, then let’s do that. But what can we possibly do this time that would really be a big enough seed?”

Oral said, “Evelyn, the Lord has laid it on my heart to read the New Testament all the way through on cassette tape and at intervals stop and give a word on various passages based on what God has shown me through the years.”

I said, “Well, that’s okay for your seed, but what about mine?”

“You will run the tape recorder for me.”

“Oral, I’m not a mechanic. I don’t know anything about getting professional quality on tape.”

“Our TV department can show you how and help you the first few times and you will learn. Then we can go to a quiet place to do the taping.”

“Well, how do I say no when you put it that way?” I said to my husband —who is one of the most persuasive men I have ever known.

By Evelyn Roberts

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Planting a big seed isn’t easy. . . but it’s worth it.


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Planting that seed of faith took us a year and a half because we had to do it between preaching engagements, television work, and all phases of ministry, but a marvelous thing began to happen to us as we did it.

As Oral read God’s Word aloud, it was like a whole new world opened up to both of us. A healing began in our spirits. The grief began to melt away and I have said many times since that I truly believe God’s Word kept me sane during those difficult days.

And as a result of that seed planted unto the Lord, thousands of people have had their lives changed by listening to those tapes.

Just recently a lady told me that she and her husband had needed to make a long trip and they listened to some of those tapes for seven hours straight. They were so blessed they never grew weary on that trip.

Others who had lost a loved one by suicide or by some other traumatic tragedy have had a change in their life and in their thinking by listening to the tapes on the New Testament with Oral Roberts’ comments.

If you are hurting from some tragedy that has happened to you, this little booklet has been written to help you get your feet back on solid ground. I believe in the power of prayer. And right now I’d like to pray this prayer with you, believing that this can be the beginning of a powerful healing and deliverance in your life:

Father, as I come to You today for the healing and deliverance of this dear one from the grief that is tearing her/him apart on the inside, I declare that I believe in Your power over the power of the evil one. I believe in the power of Your good over the devil’s bad. And I believe in Your wish for Your children to have abundant life over the devil’s wish to destroy those who are most precious to you.

Now in the Name of Jesus, I command the depression, the false guilt, the heavy spirit of grief that has been binding you to loose its hold over your life. And as you look to God for His complete and total healing to come about, I pray and I believe with you for a miracle.

Now I want you to know that I am human and I still feel pangs of hurt at times because Rebecca is gone and because Ronnie is gone. The human part of me will never forget them nor cease aching for them even as I write this story and recall events, I ache. But the heavy grief is gone and now I know I’ll see both of my children when I go to be with the Lord.

The best way I know to get over the grief is to plant a seed of faith do something for someone else who is hurting and ask God for a harvest of blessings to come back to you. You’ll be surprised at the change in your attitude, your spirit, even your health.

I plant the seed of this story into your life, believing that God will use it to lift you up from your grief and depression and help you to know God loves you and is concerned about your needs.

Answer 2

God gave us life and a soul. It is not up to us to end that life. I don't know what God will do to people that take their own life. I have an idea that God is a compassionate Being that will look at all the issues involving a human's life before passing judgment on that person. Saying this,I think that if a person is innocent (not knowing that taking ones own life is a sin),they may be forgiven of that sin. Also,if that person's life was so bad that they felt the only way to find peace was to take their own life,then that person may also be forgiven. It's the misery of the individual person's life that sometimes clouds the mind enough to not even think about the consequences of the act of suicide. I believe my God is a compassionate and loving God.

Answer 3

If a person commits suicide then it must be as plain as the nose on your face that he or she was mentally unstable, right?
Well if a person is mentally unstable why would a God punish him or her for doing something when they were not in their right minds?
And that stuff about not being able to ask for forgiveness, well if that person is not in his or her right mind then how could they ask for forgiveness?
I think God takes these people and lets them be at peace with him and finally free of the torment that a person goes through when they think that taking their own life is the only way out for them.
So if your church condemns them then you need to find another church that does not judge people. No one has the right to judge another person about anything that concerns where they go after they die. That is between God and the individual and not a single other person.
That's what I think anyway.
Thanks for the question.

Answer 4

If what you are asking is what happens to a person who has committed suicide then I would answer with this...

Those who are adamant that a person who takes his life is committing a mortal sin, and will go to hell, are basing their belief on church doctrine rather than on the Bible. Scripture is silent on the subject. There are no verses that say "He who takes his own life shall be damned." According to Scripture, only one sin does not have forgiveness, and that is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (see Mark 3:29 footnote). That means there is forgiveness for every other sin.

Some quote 1 Corinthians 3:17, which says that God will destroy someone who "defiles" the temple of the Holy Spirit. Yet, there is disagreement about what it means to defile the temple. Does this include suicide? Does it include illicit drug abuse (slow suicide), prescription drug abuse, cigarettes (deliberately breathing in poisons that will eventually kill), tattoos, over-eating (digging a grave with your spoon), or alcohol abuse?

God forbid that we add to the pain of someone who has lost a loved one through the tragedy of suicide, by making a judgment about their eternal destiny. God is the ultimate Judge, and we should therefore leave the issue in His hands. It would be wise to follow the biblical example and not come to any verdict in the case of suicide.

Answer 5

I believe suicide is a sin(thou shall not kill), and the person will face judgment on every sin they don't ask forgiveness for, but sin does not make you loose your salvation. Every person continues to sin after being saved, none are perfect. Even the great apostle Paul confessed he wrestled with sin! If that person died after accepting Christ, then they are in heaven, just as every other person who accepted salvation is.

I have also faced the suicide of a very close friend, it gives me comfort to know that he did come to Christ after a lifetime of claiming to be an atheist. I, more than anyone it seems, know the mental struggles he faced every day. I also fully believe that he is now happy and in comfort. I wish he had not done it, but I also understand.

Answer 6

I cannot imagine a religion that worships any God that is all mighty and all good, automatically condemning the soul of a person who has taken his or her life. However, as a Christian, I believe that God knows the pain of the one who self-destructs, and the Bible assures us that "his mercy endures forever". Furthermore, Jesus tells us in the parable of the lost sheep, that God will go to any length and never stop looking for that one, lost, confused soul. I think we have every reason to be hopeful that one who has made the mistake of taking their life, will be understood and comforted and treated with mercy by God...

By the way, the story by Evelyn Roberts was a good one. I would add one thing which I learned in a book by the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church: There is strong evidence including the testimony of Rev. Perry himself, who was aquainted with Ron Roberts, that one of Ron's major struggles that may have led to his self-destruction, is that he was homosexual. Growing up the son of a famous evangelist in a community of fundamentalist/Pentecostal believers who believed homosexuals are the worst kind of sinners, may well have set Ron Roberts up for his lifetime of emotional pain including substance abuse and ultimately suicide. I share this because perhaps other Christians who condemn gays may think twice about their attitudes and how hurtful and destructive those attitudes may be for a loved one who is gay.

Answer 7

When someone is troubled and cannot handle life, I seriously doubt they are going to hell. Suicide is a desparate act, this isn't cheating on your spouse. This is a tortured soul that does not feel able to continue.

When someone is in pain their only thought is how do I make this stop...I do not think that a loving God could think anything other than this poor soul needed to be free from their pain.

Answer 8

Here's my take on that: God knows a person's heart. I feel like if someone who had drastic problems mentally, emotionally, or physically, He will take that into account. I have had a friend commit suicide, and that thought gave me alot of comfort.

Answer 9

Take him to counseling. He needs help!Figure something out before it's too late.

Answer 10

Your religion speaks specifically about it, but what does the Bible say about it...that's all you should be concerned with!

Answer 11

Take him places so he can have fun, and maybe find him a girl.