(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you That's the book of Matthew, chapter 27. And as we do customary here at Stormhold Baptist Church, we'll read the entire chapter as Brother Devin is pleased to that point. That was Matthew, chapter 27. When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. Then Judas, which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? Seethe out of that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in. Wherefore, that field was called the field of blood unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. And Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then said Pilate unto him, Here's thou not how many things they witnessed against thee? And he answered him to never a word, and so much that the governor marveled greatly. Now, at that feast, the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner whom they would. And they had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will you that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus, which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man? For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor asked and said unto them, Whether of the twain will you that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. Then answered all the people and said, His blood be on us and on our children. Then released Barabbas unto them, and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand. And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews. And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him. They took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear his cross. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there, and set up over his head his accusation, written, This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroys the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself, if thou be the son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priest mocking him with the scribes and elders said, He saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him, for he said, I am the son of God. The thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there when they heard that said, This man called for Elias. And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent and twain from the top to the bottom. And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus saw the earthquake and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him, among which was Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and of Joseph and the mother of Zebedee's children. When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulcher. Now the next day that followed, the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Come in, therefore, that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away and say unto the people he has risen from the dead, So the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. Brother Chad Gonzalez, can you pray for us? All right, before we get started with the sermon, there's one more announcement that I forgot to make, and that's a real simple one. We brought a little like a BMX bike for a young child, and that's free for the taking. It's right outside the front door if you want it. My Jonathan outgrew his bike a little while ago, and he has an upgraded version. So if you have any smaller children that want that bike, you can go ahead and just take it. First come, first serve, you like it, you want it. Out the door, you got it. All right, that being said, let's get into the sermon this morning. Now, the subject I'm going to be preaching on is the subject of suicide. Suicide is kind of a heavy topic to deal with. It's a very important topic, something we have to deal with in this life. And if I forget to mention it later on, this kind of dovetails with the sermon I preached last week about reaching a breaking point. All right, it's going to go hand in hand with that sermon I preached last week, all about when you get to a point in your life where you just feel like you can't go on anymore. I encourage you, if you ever deal with suicidal thoughts, go back and listen to that sermon and listen to it in advance to be able to have some strength and some comfort, as well as this sermon, too, hopefully will provide some help as well. But before we even get into that aspect, I want to try to cover many aspects of suicide here. I want to start off just covering a false doctrine regarding suicide, where some people teach and many people believe that if a person commits suicide, they automatically just go straight to hell. And that is not true. And I'm going to explain why that's not true. Now, it may be true for many people. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. I'm just saying, though, that the sin of committing suicide itself, which is a sin, by the way, the Bible says thou shalt not kill, and that goes for yourself as well as anybody else. It is a sin to commit suicide. However, Jesus Christ did die on the cross to pay the price for every sin. There is a sin that the Bible says doesn't have forgiveness. And that sin, the Bible says, is the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. And I apologize. I'm going to go over some of these topics a little bit quickly. Many of these things I can preach an entire sermon about, and I have preached entire sermons about. So if you have questions about these, you know, ask me about it later. I could prove it more thoroughly for you. But the Bible talks about blaspheming the Holy Ghost, and people come up with all kinds of crazy ideas about that. But if you look at the context, what the people did when Jesus said that if you blaspheme the Holy Ghost, you never have forgiveness. It was the Pharisees that were claiming that when Jesus was casting out devils and when Jesus was healing people, he was doing it by the power of Beelzebub or by the power of Satan. So they were literally saying that instead of the Holy Ghost, which was working through Christ, that that actually was the power of the devil and that Jesus isn't the Christ. Completely making, instead of the power of God saying, no, that's actually the power of Satan, that's blaspheming the Holy Ghost. And that is what the Bible says is the unpardonable sin, unforgivable sin. But it says nothing about suicide being an unforgivable sin. You can't find that anywhere in Scripture. It's dogma. It's doctrine. It's taught mainly by the Catholic Church. But not just the Catholic Church. There's a whole bunch of other people that will believe the same thing. And it all boils down to this idea of repentance and do you have to repent of your sins. And the reason why people will say, well, if you commit suicide, you automatically go to hell, is they'll say, well, any other sin you can repent of before you die. But when it comes to suicide, you're literally, you don't have a chance to repent of suicide. It's something that you just do right away. But that's false. I mean, it's true that you can't repent of suicide after you've done it. That's a true statement. But the deeper question is, do we have to repent of all of our sins in order to be saved? And the answer to that question is no. No. Now that is taught. You may be sitting here going, Pastor Burzins, I've heard that my entire life. It's what I was taught. It's what I've been brought to believe. But here's the thing. The Bible never says you have to repent of all of your sins to be saved. It never says that. And I'll challenge you if you say, wait a minute. No, it does. Check the Bible. Check it out. See if it's true. Now, does the Bible say repent? Yes. Yes, the word repent is used frequently in Scripture. Okay? But now you have to determine and discern what does that word mean. Don't get stuck on the definition that many people just use, falsely use, of saying, well, repent means turn from sin. That is easily disproven in Scripture, very easily disproven in Scripture. And if you want to, you can turn to Jonah chapter 3. I'm not going to spend, you know, this idea of repentance is a sermon in itself. So I'm going to still cover this relatively lightly, but it's extremely important to this subject when dealing with suicide, that you keep your place in Matthew. You're going to be going back there. But Jonah chapter 3, in the Old Testament, it's part of the Minor Prophets, if you know where any of that is. You've got Major Prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. You've got Daniel. Keep going forward. You've got Hosea. When you find Obadiah, you're almost there. You go to Jonah. Jonah chapter 3. It's the last verse in Jonah chapter 3. Actually, we could read verse 9 first. The Bible says, Who can tell if God will turn and repent? Now, this is talking about God repenting, which you'll find frequently in Scripture. It's not just this one passage or this one verse or this one place. You will see, especially in the Old Testament, a lot, God repenting. Now, if the definition of repent is turn from your sin, that makes God a sinner. Then that makes God not holy. But we know God is holy. We know God is true. We know that God's not a sinner. If we know anything, we know God's not a sinner. So right there, the definition of repent means turn from your sins is destroyed. That's not the definition. The definition of repent is to turn, okay? But from what depends on the context. It's a change of mind. It's a turning. That is what repent means. But like so many other words in the English language, you really need to see the whole context to understand what it's actually talking about. And what I'll submit to you this morning is when the Bible says, for example, repent and believe the gospel, what John the Baptist taught, what Jesus Christ taught to people when it's talking about everlasting life, when it's talking about people being saved, why did they have to repent and believe the gospel? Well, the key is believe the gospel. So verses like John 3.16 stand on their own for very good reason. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. There's no reference to the word repent there, but repent is inherent in that verse because in order to believe in Jesus, you have to stop believing or change what you believe, whatever it was you were trusting in to save you, you can't trust in that anymore. You have to trust in Jesus. So when they say repent and believe the gospel, hey, change, turn from what you're believing, turn from your obedience to the law, your faith in obeying God's commandments to save you, turn from your faith that the Catholic Church can save you and I must be a member of this church to be saved, turn from your belief that, hey, I'm just a pretty good person and I haven't done anything that bad, so I'm just going to go to heaven because God's just going to weigh the good versus the bad, turn from those beliefs and put your trust in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Him alone to save you and you're saved. That's what it means and to further illustrate this because a lot of the people who will say you have to turn from all your sins to be saved, you have to repent of your sins to be saved, will also say salvation is by grace because that's irrefutable. Salvation is by grace through faith. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 says, For by grace are you saved through faith, in that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works that any man should boast. If it's not of yourselves but you have to stop sinning or give up sins, that doesn't jive, that doesn't make sense. If I'm required to have to do these things of getting rid of sins, obeying the law in order to be saved, then how is that not of ourselves? It doesn't make sense. Now look, we should repent of all of our sins. We should do that, absolutely. And I'll preach that we should repent of all of our sins. We should turn from all of our sins. We should live a godly, holy, sold out, righteous life for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But you have to understand that that has nothing to do with you being saved. That doesn't save you is really a more accurate way of putting it. That is no part of you receiving eternal life. Zero part of you receiving eternal life. Understanding you're a sinner, understanding the consequences for your sin, that there is a judgment, there is a hell, there is a place where people will go and suffer for their sins in eternity. Yeah, you do have to understand that. You have to believe that's true. So then you can look to the Savior to save you from that condemnation. But then once He saves you, He saves you forever. Now, I mentioned, you know, the same people that say, hey, you have to turn from your sins or repent of all of your sins and be saved, will also say the salvation by grace through faith. Well, salvation by grace through faith is true. A hundred percent. It's not of us. But what they don't understand and what most people don't understand is that turning from your sins is works. It's a work. And if you just break it down, first of all, just real simply before we even get into the biblical definition, which is why we turn to Jonah chapter 3, if you just think about it on the surface, you know, people like to say this, turn from your sin to the Savior, turn from your sin to the Savior. Has anyone ever heard that before? Turn from your sin to Jesus, turn from your sin to the Savior, right? It sounds great. And it sounds like something that you could just be like, yeah, that sounds good. But what does it really mean to turn from your sin? If you turn from sin, what are you doing? You're obeying the law, God's law, because sin is the transgression of the law. So if you were to truly turn from your sin, right, you've got the law on this side and sin on this side, they're diametrically opposed. The more sins you commit, the more you're breaking God's law. The less sins you commit, the more you're keeping the law. So if you were to turn from sinning, you're going to be keeping the law. But keeping the law doesn't save you. And this is important. A lot of people have this messed up, but this is critical, because too many people are turning a grace salvation, a free gift salvation, into a works salvation. And just to highlight and just to prove, the Bible teaches that turning from your evil way, turning from your sins, turning from your wickedness, is works. Look at Jonah 3, verse 10. The Bible says, And God saw their what? Their works, that they turned from their evil way. Now, does anyone going to disagree, turning from your evil way could be pretty much synonymous with turning from your sins? I mean, is that is that really such a hard stretch to make that connection? God saw their works that they turned from. Turning from your sins is a work. Bottom line. And then it says, And God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. So when God repented, he changed his mind. He was going to destroy Nineveh in the context of Jonah. He was going to destroy a city. But they changed. They turned from their evil way. So God spared the city. But I'll tell you what. That's not their eternal soul salvation. That is a nation. That is a city. If you're saying, Well, wait a minute. If they had to turn from their evil way for God not to destroy them, how is that any different than salvation? It's very different. God judges a nation different than he judges an individual soul. Jesus Christ didn't die on the cross to pay for the sins of every nation. He died on the cross to pay for the sins of every soul, every individual. A whole nation can be destroyed, but you could still have souls that are saved. So when you have wicked nations, nations have to be worried about God destroying that nation. And we've seen that happen all throughout history. And here's the perfect example of a nation or a city, a place, a locale, right, that was doing very wickedly. And God was upset. God was angry. God was full of wrath that he wanted to destroy that place. But you know what? He gave him another chance. He sent a preacher that was going to warn them and tell them, Hey, look, this this whole place is going to be destroyed if you don't change your ways. They heard that they believe they received that message and said, all right, hey, let's let's get right here. We don't want to be destroyed by God. They humbled themselves and they got right. So God spared Nineveh. But when it comes to a soul being saved, you still have to humble yourself. You have to realize, hey, I'm a sinner. Hey, there's a destruction coming. But there is a savior that paid for your sins when he died on the cross. And you just have to put your trust in him. And over and over and over again throughout scripture, you're going to find what is the requirement? Just like the Bible says in Acts 16, what must I do to be saved? I mean, literally point blank, asking the question specifically, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. No mention of turning from sin, no mention of the works that you have to do. Why? Because you don't have to do works to be saved. And while I'm on the subject, let's just turn real quick to Roman Chapter three. We're still going to go back to Matthew twenty seven. I'll dig into suicide a little bit. This is just too important of a point to pass over. Romans Chapter three, verse number twenty eight, one of my favorite verses that covers this and should cover this completely. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith. Without the deeds of the law. Well, no, it's faith plus works, right? No, without the deeds of the law. You're justified by faith. Even if you don't keep any of the law, you're still justified by faith. Putting your trust in Christ and that savior is what saves you. You say, well, if that's true. Well, first of all, it is true because that's what the Bible says. But what people like, well, if that's true, then that didn't. Then everyone's going, everyone's saved. I mean, everyone's going to have. No, no, absolutely not. The people that say that you don't actually go around and talk to people about what they really believe. The reason why it's not just because someone calls themselves a Christian or goes to a Christian church doesn't make them saved. And it also doesn't mean they believe in Jesus. Now, if you ask somebody, do you believe in Jesus? Sure, you're going to get a high percentage of people in the United States of America that are going to say yes. But that belief, what they're referring to isn't what the Bible's talking about, trusting Jesus alone as your savior. And that's the key thing to understand that while many people will assent to or say, yes, I believe in Jesus. If you would have asked me when I was a child growing up in a Presbyterian home if I believe in Jesus, of course I would say yes. But I was unsaved. How is that? How is that? Because I didn't reject Christ. I didn't reject any of that stuff. But I was, yeah, sure, I'm a Christian. Yeah, I believe in Jesus. Yeah, I believe Jesus was real. I believe the stories about Jesus. I thought it was all true. But I never put my trust in him to save my soul. That's a decision that was made when I was, what, 20 years old, 20 years old in my bedroom. I called on the name of the Lord to save me because I knew I needed a savior because I finally understood the gospel. And I called out to the Lord to save me. That's when I got saved. Believing in a set of facts of just, yeah, Jesus is real, not rejecting that is not the belief that the Bible is talking about here. It's a trust. Just trusting. What is it that's going to save me? Jesus. I'm just trusting him completely. Because prior to that, if you would have asked me, like the pastor of my church did, well, what does a person have to be saved? I said, oh, I believe in Jesus. He's like, is that all? I was like, well, no, you got to go to church, you got to read the Bible, you got to do this, you got to do that. That just demonstrates Jesus isn't enough. I'm not trusting that Jesus is enough. I'm not trusting that Jesus truly is my savior because I have to do work. I have to do this other stuff. Salvation is Jesus Christ alone. His shed blood on the cross, what he did, everything that he did, the perfect life that he lived, the healing, the fulfillment of prophecy, the dying on the cross, his soul descending into hell, the resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, the sprinkling of the blood on the mercy seat, all of that covers my sin. And that is completely sufficient to cover every single one of my sins, including, God forbid, suicide. Covers it all. Covers it all. In my favorite verse in the whole Bible, in case you didn't know or if you ever were curious, and even if you're not curious, I'm going to tell you anyways, is John 5, 24. Jesus said, verily, verily, I say to you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is past from death unto life. Three verb tenses, past, present, future, all used there. If you believe, you have everlasting life right now in that moment. You don't receive it later. When you die, you have it. In the future, you shall not come into condemnation. It's already done. He's already sealed you with the Holy Spirit of promise. You are saved. Why? Because it's already happened. You've already passed from death unto life. The instant you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you've passed from death unto life. Amen. Praise the Lord. That is salvation. And so many people that get suicide wrong don't understand that aspect of salvation. That it truly is a free gift. It's good news. Now, one of the things that, go back to Matthew 27 where we started. I'm going a little bit out of order, but that's okay. You wouldn't have known we're going out of order anyways unless I told you. Matthew 27 is, when people think that you can go to, or will automatically go to hell by committing suicide, the primary reference they'll give is Judas Iscariot. That's the main reason why people will say no if you kill yourself. In addition to the repentance thing, like I was just discussing that. You know, you got to turn from your sin. You can't repent from that once you've already done it. And know the same people think you have to just ask for forgiveness over and over and over and over and over again. Look, once Jesus saves you, you're saved eternally. That's the good news. But let's look at this story of Judas. So Judas, of course, is a traitor. He betrays Jesus Christ. He turns him over to the chief priests in the Roman government, essentially. And, excuse me, as a result, he changes his mind later. And we're going to look at that here in Matthew 27. Look at verse number 3. Moses and Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. So here we see Judas that he actually, now that everything's done, after he's already betrayed Jesus, and he sees now Jesus is going to be condemned to death, he's going, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, no, no. No, I don't want this to happen because of me. He wants to backtrack and undo what he's already done. And he literally changes his mind. And he says this, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? See, out of that, they don't care. They were just using Judas anyways. But Judas here repents himself. But we could tell, and, you know, it's just too much to dig into all the scripture for this as well. But you can read, especially in Psalms, prophecies about Judas Iscariot, about the traitor, that he dies and goes to hell. Okay, he's cursed. He's the son of perdition, is one of the terms that the Bible gives him. But we see him here repenting, and it says in verse five, and he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. So he commits suicide. He gets so upset about this that he goes out and kills himself. And you could say, well, look, and I've heard people say, well, did Judas get saved? Well, maybe. I mean, he repented here. Again, illustrating, just because someone repents of something doesn't make them saved. It doesn't say he repented and put all his trust in Jesus Christ as his savior. He was just sorry about what he had done and was so sorry he killed himself. Now, that's a lot of sorrow, right? So did he repent of what he had done? Yeah, I mean, it looks like it, but he didn't repent the right way as far as a salvation would go. Because he didn't turn to Christ. He went and killed himself. Now, Jesus knew, and specifically with Judas, Judas didn't lose his salvation here either. Judas was never saved. In fact, Jesus called Judas a devil way before this even happened. In John chapter 6, if you remember in John chapter 6, he says a lot of things, and then a lot of his disciples depart from it. That's what he's talking about, eating his flesh and drinking his blood and being the bread from heaven. And a lot of people leave, and then he turns to his disciples. He's like, well, are you going to leave also? And of course, Peter speaks up. He's like, well, who are we going to turn to, Lord? You know, like, no, of course we're not going to leave. And then in verse 70, right at the end of the chapter, Jesus answered him. He says, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. He was a devil early on. He was a devil when he betrayed Jesus. He was a devil when he died. People that are wicked, sons of Belial, the Bible also refers to them as sons of the devil, they can feel bad about doing something they've done wrong. They can repent of doing something they've done wrong for whatever reason. They can go out and do and just be just really upset or sad and go and kill themselves. They could do that. Judas is a prime example of that. But that doesn't mean that he got saved. Now, did you just go to the Judas go to hell? Yes, of course he did. But that wasn't because he killed himself. He was he didn't get saved when he threw down the pieces of silver. Because the Bible never records him believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, which is what the requirement is for salvation. Let's look at a couple of other examples, though, in the Bible, because what I want to show you is that just because Judas did end up going to hell when he commits suicide, we've got examples of two other people that did take their own life that I could say pretty confidently we could either assume or just know that they did not go to hell. And these are pretty solid evidences. The first one is going to be King Saul. If you turn, if you would, to 1 Samuel chapter 28. 1 Samuel chapter 28. And I'm not going to go into all of this all the passage and read everything. But if you don't know the story, King Saul started off great. He was the first king of Israel. He was humble in his own eyes. He was proclaimed to be the king. He started following God, but then he started kind of doing things his own way, started getting lifted up and puffed up himself. He cared more what the people thought than what God thought. And he started just going down this downward spiral. He kept on chasing after David because David was anointed to be the next king of Israel and replacing Saul and Saul didn't like that. So you have all this story, all the first Samuel you can read about everything and kind of the demise of King Saul. But King Saul was still a saved man. Saved people can do a lot of wicked things. We still have this flesh. We still can sin and we can still do very bad sins like King Saul had done, like King David had done. King David commit adultery and murder. I mean, that's pretty bad. Pretty bad. But he was still a child of God. It doesn't excuse anything that anyone's done that's wrong. But it illustrates that saved people commit sin just like unsaved people commit sin. We see Saul's suicide because what happened then after this passage we're going to read the next day. He's in this battle against the Philistines and he gets wounded severely. And instead of allowing himself to be captured, he asked his armor bearer, hey, you know, basically, can you just kill me now before they come and get me? His armor bearer wouldn't do it. Nope, not going to do it. So he fell on his own sword. He killed himself. Okay. And ultimately commit suicide because he didn't want to go through whatever they were going to put him through when they captured him. Already half dead. But here's where we can deduce that King Saul still was saved and went to heaven even though he did take his own life. Chapter 28 of 1 Samuel, verse number 19. This is Samuel speaking to Saul. It says, Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me. The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. So this is Samuel speaking to King Saul, by the way. Yes, Saul went to a witch. Yes, witches are wicked and he shouldn't have gone to a witch in the first place. But the narrator of the Bible refers to this as Samuel and not just some familiar spirit, not some devil, not someone impersonating Samuel. But when the narrator of the Bible says something, that's all he goes. Obviously, the Bible can record people telling lies. The Bible records things that Satan says, and we know Satan is a father of lies. So the things that Satan actually says aren't true. But when the Bible records it, what he said, it's recording literally what he said. That make sense? And if a witch were to say something, you can't trust that what the witch says is true. But the narrator, the third person that's giving the account of the story, the narrator refers to this as being Samuel, not some familiar spirit, not some devil, but Samuel. This is how we know that this is from the Lord. In addition to this, exactly what was prophesied also coming to pass and actually happening. Right. But if Samuel is saying tomorrow, thou and thy son shall be with me, the only way that could happen is if he was with Samuel in heaven. Right. Because Samuel wasn't in hell. The prophet of God, he was faithful to the end. No matter how you want to even slice salvation, Samuel saved. Right. And here he's telling Saul he's going to be with him. So this is one piece of evidence that we have. We also have Samson, one of the judges of Israel. In Judges chapter 16, Samson ends up pushing the pillars out and killing himself in the process of killing other Philistines. OK, so he's he's the modern day version of like a suicide bomber. Right. Someone who's going to do damage and inflict a lot of damage while taking his own life in the process. And in Judges 16, verse 28, the Bible says, and Samson called unto the Lord and said, Oh, Lord God, remember me, I pray thee and strengthen me. I pray the only this once. Oh, God, that it may be at once avenge of the Philistines, that I may be at once avenge of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood and on which it was born up, of the one with his right hand and of the other with his left. And Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might in the house, fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were there in. So the dead, which he slew at his death, were more than they which he slew in his life. And again, as someone who the Lord used, where the Bible talks about the spirit of the Lord came upon someone that came upon, I believe it came upon Samson more than anyone else in scripture when like literally just using that phrase of the spirit of the Lord came upon him. And he had all these these great victories and those strength and he's going out and do all these different things. The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he does these things and, you know, God strengthens them and gives them all this might. So someone who is used so much, you could even argue in Hebrews Chapter 11 that Samson's reference there, even though it's not necessarily specifically by name, we have no indication to think that Samson also was not a believer yet. He committed suicide and I believe Hebrews 11 would point to that as well. But we don't even need these specific examples because the salvation doctrine is good enough. Eternal life is good enough to trust that once you have something that lasts forever, something that God has promised will last forever, that it's not temporary for any reason. I mean, if God makes a promise, if Jesus makes a promise, would you ever doubt or think, well, maybe that won't actually happen? You shouldn't because God never lies. It's one thing that God can't do. God's a holy God. As I mentioned earlier, God's not a sinner. God doesn't lie. He can tell us the truth all the time. So if the Bible says in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began, eternal life, God made a promise of eternal life. Once you have eternal life, you have it forever because it's eternal, inherently. There is no caveat to that. There is no, well, unless you do this or do that, then it won't be eternal life for you. No, it's always eternal life, which is why John 5 24, my favorite verse, says you shall not come into condemnation. It applies in all cases. That should be enough. Now, all of that being said. Right. We could have some comfort if you've ever had someone that, you know, has a testimony of trust in Christ as a savior. Unfortunately, if they've taken their own life, we can still know and be comforted. Well, that person still was saved and they're not going to be burning in hell. That's good news. But just because you can't lose your salvation, it should never be viewed at as some prize or reward of taking your own life and ending your life here on Earth. Right. Don't ever get that backwards, especially when we understand. And when you teach other people, too, because the teaching is important, it's critical. Understand that there is nothing that could take away your salvation once you're saved. Praise the Lord for that's good news. It's great news. Jesus paid it all all to him. I owe. So he paid the whole way. But that doesn't mean we should ever view our life here as just, well, I'm saved now. Nothing matters. Right. Or I'm saved anyway. So I'll just I mean, I'll just kill myself right now. No, of course not. And it also doesn't mean that there's no consequences. OK, now, just because a person is saved. If you take your own life, there's always going to be consequences. And this is what really needs to be thought about and understood and have ingrained in your mind. Way before you ever get depressed to the point of even contemplating taking your own life is having this known that if you just choose to do something like that, you will be hurting many other people. And it's just going to illustrate it because what happens very frequently with people that do take their own lives, unfortunately, they get kind of wrapped up in their own grief and misery and sorrow. They have they have whatever happens in their life. And I'm not going to, you know, make light of anything that any situation that someone has that would cause them to contemplate suicide. Right. People go through some very, very grievous things and some very tragic circumstances, very tragic things that happen. But the danger comes in when you get too focused on all of the bad things. And it turns into this downward spiral of getting a woe is me attitude. Causing further depression and just not being able to see any hope or any light. And people get to the point where they think, well, I'm just going to end this now because I can't take it anymore. But the problem with that is you lose sight of other people because you get too focused on yourself. And I believe this, I preach, I'm going to keep teaching this until the day I die, that the true cure for depression is not going to come through drugs and medication. It's going to come through one, your savior. Right. So people who aren't saved, if you're not saved, you need to get saved. You need the love of God in your heart and in your life. And you need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help you. But two, it's going to come from then helping other people and taking the focus off of yourself and putting it on others. Helping other people. The Bible says it's more blessed to give than to receive. And that's a fact. That's true. Giving, helping, doing, laboring for other people brings joy, brings peace, brings satisfaction. That is the life. I mean, is that not the life that Jesus Christ lived? Did he ever live in this life? Did he ever walk this earth for himself? Nothing that he did. In fact, Jesus left the throne, left the glory, left the kingdom to come here. He didn't come here for his own glory. He came here to save others. He came here to sacrifice. He came here to help. He came here and worked. And when you read the Bible, you see over and over and over again, he says, Hey, look, I don't even have a home. I don't have a place to live in my head. When he starts his ministry, he's going out and people say, Oh, I'm going to follow you. Look, I don't have a place to stay. I don't even know where I'm staying tonight. And he's going forth and he's healing and he's preaching and he's teaching. And then later on, when the day's done, he's going up by himself and praying to the Lord. And he's doing all these various things with his life, ever sacrificing, ever living for other people. Until the day he dies and sheds his blood for the whole world. That's the life that Jesus lived. As a Christian, we're supposed to be followers of Christ. Right? That's what Christian means. Well, if you're going to be Christ-like, that's how we ought to live anyways. But I'll tell you this much. While, yes, there's sufferings that go along with that. All throughout the sufferings, there is joy within. It seems strange that you can say, Well, how can a person stuff suffer but still have joy? It's totally possible. We read about it in the Bible. Some people might think, you know, the apostles were crazy or disciples when they got beaten and thrown in jail. They rejoiced. What? They rejoiced? They did. They did. It's a fact. And they weren't faking it. They weren't trying to show how holy they were. Like, really? This is terrible. They rejoiced. They were happy that they were kind of worthy to suffer shame because they know what Jesus went through. So if they're serving the Lord, they're serving other people, they're going out and doing what they're supposed to be doing, and they end up suffering shame. Praise the Lord. And they can have that joy and they know they're reaching people. And doing that, when you do help people, it helps you. So for people that get to this bad place where you're kind of feeling that way, you know, one of the things that will help prevent you from doing that is going to be get yourself out of that rut in the sense of stop thinking about all of your problems and just distract yourself by helping other people. But also understand this. Because, you know, my own familiarity just with this mindset, a lot of times people will start to think that, like, oh, everyone will be better off without me. I'm the big problem. I screw everything up. I do everything wrong. But unfortunately, that's a self-deceit. Because what you truly end up doing, and you can see this as true the days long by people who were survived by those who take their own lives, you plague your family members, your friends with one with guilt of thinking, what could I have done? I wish I would have known more. How is it that they could leave me? Maybe you have a spouse or maybe you have children. How could they leave me? What did I do to cause them to have their life be so bad and so miserable? And now nothing can ever be done about that because you've taken your own life. And they have to live with that for the rest of their life because you decided to take your own life. And you really will be inflicting harm and pain on those that love you. Even if you think you're trying to alleviate, maybe you're a burden to them because you have a medical condition. Maybe you're a burden on them for some other reason. Maybe, you know, you have a lot of problems and you feel like, man, I'm just a burdenless person. If I was just gone, everything would be better. No, to the person that loves you, that's not going to be better. That's not better. Just because, like, for the people I love, I would never want to trade that person for not having to do some work for them. Right? If something happened, God forbid, my wife, she had a stroke, she wasn't able to talk, she wasn't able to take care of herself or anything like that, I would never want the thought to even cross her head that she would have to end her own life to make it easier for me or better for me. Not a chance. Never. Never. Never. There are people that love you and that care about you and that you impact and oftentimes you don't even realize it. Acquaintances even. Friends. You know, you will be abandoning people, you'll be hurting them by making them feel guilty, you'll be inflicting so much more on the people you leave behind. It's not the way out. Life has great value. Jesus Christ died and shed his blood so that you could have life. We ought to revere and regard life in all capacities. I'm against the ending of life, whether that be in the womb or whether that be an old age. We ought to revere and regard life and treat it wholly and and and revere what God has given us. Our life truly is a gift from God. And you could say, I don't feel like it's much of a gift because I've had all these other bad things happen. Start doing good for other people. You'll start to not think as much about the bad things that happened to you. And then you'll start to realize you could have joy in this life. And it's not going to come through satisfying all of your own flesh and desires. And oh, man, I just wish I had more money and I wish I had more food and I wish I had another car and I wish I had this and that and that. That's going to be a life of misery in and of itself. The covetousness, the love of money is the root of all evil and and which while some men coveted after, they're pierced through with sorrows. OK, it's it's it's it is a trap. It's a trap. Going after all the world's good, everything the world has to offer you, living for yourself. It's all a trap. It's going to make you miserable. It's why so many people that do have everything, quote unquote, in the world's eyes. They have the money, they have the houses, they have the cars are so wretchedly miserable and have to drink and do drugs and and find any other outlet, any way to try to satisfy themselves and make themselves happy because they're not truly happy because money doesn't give you happiness. Riches doesn't give you happiness. Walking in the spirit is going to bring you joy, peace, comfort, all all the good things. Love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, long suffering. All of that comes through the Holy Ghost, comes through the Holy Spirit, comes through serving God, comes through serving others. Turning to Lamentations Chapter three. I'm going to close with a couple of passages that will hopefully provide comfort. To those who are or will ever. Get to that place in their in their mind where they feel like they want to kill themselves. Because the Bible has the answers. And I'll tell you now, again, if you're not struggling with anything like this at all right now, just get this ingrained in your head and make sure that this is solid for you so that when the hard times do come, you have something to fall back on. You have some remembrance of these things to help you and comfort you through your difficult time. And I also want to say this. You know. I don't think of myself as anyone special, but I but I know this much and I've experienced this much pastoring for almost 10 years now. You know, when I choose to preach sermons. I'm trying to come up with things that I think need to be taught in the Bible. The vast majority of times, I don't have some special insight into anyone in particular. OK, I don't know what's going on in people's lives. I pray to the Lord every time I go to prepare sermons that God would help lead me to teach on things that our church needs that I can reach people every single time. And you know what? I hear many, many, many times feedback from people saying, you know, hey, thanks for I really needed that. Like, you don't even understand what's going on in my life right now. But like, I needed to hear that. And I say, praise the Lord, right? Hey, that's good. I believe that God leads. And here's a scary thought for me, though, is that I preached a sermon last week and I preached a sermon this week. I don't know why. It's an important subject. It needs to be handled. It's something that exists in Scripture. But if you are impacted by this, please speak to somebody about this. I am happy to talk to you. If you can't talk to me, talk to someone that you love. Talk to someone that you care about to help you, because my fear is that there is someone that really needs to hear this sermon. I hope that nobody really needs this right now and that you could just store this away for the rainy day or the trouble. But my fear is that someone might need this. I'm not trying to be spooky or anything like that, but experience would tell me that there may be somebody that is dealing with this. And people love you. We love you here in this church. And more important than any of us, God loves you. Lamentations, chapter 3. We're going to see here, kind of getting into the mindset of someone here. This is the lamentation of Jeremiah. I mean, just the name itself. Lamenting, lamentations, right? This is grief. This is sorrow. This is the result, though, and this is important to understand this, the context. And we're going to read quite a bit of this chapter, but this is the result of people who are in sin. That is not the cause for everybody's grief. It's not the cause of your own sin, but it's still something to consider. Oftentimes when we go through a lot of bad things in our life, it is the result of our own sin, their own choices, very often. Not always, but it is something that we always need to reflect on ourselves and be like, well, hey, did I just bring this on myself? Am I in some major sin and they're like, I know I need to get this right? Either way, this passage will hopefully help you. Look at verse number 1, lamentation, chapter 3. The Bible says, I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me as he turned, he turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy. Also, when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes and now has removed my soul far off from peace. I forget prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord, remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. Very dark place, right? We could see this from from the narrator or the author going where he's at and where he feels he's at. And now God's not with them and his strengths depart from him and everything basically wrong is happening here. It's a it's a place of despair. But let's keep reading verse number 20. My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind. Therefore have I hope. And when when it verse number 21. It's he's preempting what he's recalling to his mind. It's not everything bad that's happened that that's a no. Now I have hope because of all these bad things that happened. OK, just just so you understand that. Look at verse number 22. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion's fail not. So even just in this verse. He's gone through a lot. A lot of trouble here. But you know what? He's not consumed. He hasn't been destroyed. It hasn't completely eaten him up. He's struggled and gone through a lot of difficulties, a lot of problems. But he's still there. And this ties in perfectly with what I was preaching last week. You know about the Lord's not going to put us through anything. He's not going to try us with anything above our measure, something that that we can't actually handle. There's always a way out. Now, you may go through extremely difficult times, but there is always a way out. There is a path. God hasn't forsaken you. You're a child of God. You are not forsaken. Again, I preached that last week, but amen, it's a great truth. And it's something important to remember. And as long as you're still here on this earth, hey, remember that his compassion doesn't fail. You may be tried. You may be going through the worst of it, even now. You may feel like or seem like there's no end in sight. But you're still here. You're not consumed. And there is hope. And there's always hope. His compassion's failing on verse number 23. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. This is the passage that that song comes from. Great is thy faithfulness. Right? It all stems from this passage right here. Beautiful song. It's a beautiful message. Right? God's faithfulness. God is faithful. God's word is true. We can have hope. The Lord is my portion, verse 24, saith my soul. Therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust. If so be, there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him. He is filled full with reproach. For the Lord will not cast off forever. It's not going to happen forever. Whatever your trouble is, it won't continue forever. It won't. It won't. God wants us to be patient. He wants us to see it through. And as I mentioned last week, hey look, just do what you can to stand. In the darkest moments, do what you can to stand. Stay with it another day. Stay with it. Keep your sights on the Lord. Start doing what you can to help others, right, if you're in the position to be able to do so. And it will get better. And for some people, you know, maybe it can only get better. But if that's true, then you know it will. Verse 31, for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men, to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not. That's not what God's all about. God's not about just stamping you and crushing you and subverting you. That's not what he wants. Verse 37, who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good. Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man, for the punishment of his sins? And there we see a little bit of insight into this, at least in the Lamentations, like I said. We know that this is more of a punishment for sins of the children of Israel, that they have gone into captivity and there's been all this, you know, bad things happening unto the people. That's a Lamentation. It's a result of their own sin. It's a result of their rejection of the Lord. It's a result of all their own sins. Now they're paying for it. Now they're reaping what they've sown. But even in the midst of that, even if you're saying, Okay, I have severely sinned against the Lord, and now my life sucks, and now I'm reaping all this stuff. His compassion still doesn't fail, and the Lord is merciful, so stay. Now you may have to, yeah, go through it, and no one, you know, is going to be happy when you suffer the chastening of the Lord. It's not fun when God corrects you, when God chastens you, but it does end. He doesn't just chase in forever. He's not there to just destroy you and trample you. He's going to, you know, correct you and bring you through. And if it's not your own cause, he's still going to be there, and you're not going to, you know, he'll see you through, just like Job. He didn't have all that happen to him because of the wrong that he had done, but the wrong that other people had done to him. Specifically, in his case, the devil, Satan, was attacking him, right? So whatever your case is, whenever you go through anything, you know, always first consider yourself, consider your sin. Consider, am I doing something really grievous? Do I already know about it? And then don't be surprised, but say, Hey, I'm just going to get right. I'm going to have the right attitude. I'm going to have the right heart. I'm going to get right with God. So then he could show mercy on me and this will pass. And if you're just like, I have no idea, I don't think it's myself. Well, hey, just seek the Lord and trust and know great is his faithfulness. He's got your breath in his hand. You're going through this. You may not even understand why you're going through it, but you're going through it for a reason. And just stay faithful. Stay true. And just get through and relief will come. Relief will come. And sometimes it's hard and we think, well, I just want relief now and I get it. It's hard and it may feel really hard. Keep going. Another day, another day, another day. Verse number 40. Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands on the God in the heavens. We have transgressed and have rebelled. Thou is not pardoned. Now it goes on and on. I don't want to keep going through Lamentations three. The last place we're going to turn to is Romans Chapter 15. We're done. I'm going to close with Romans Chapter 15. And I just want to stress this, that there is always another day. Sometimes, again, people will get to the point where they feel like, I don't know how I could get through this. It feels like there's no option. I feel trapped. I feel like this will never end. Most common for people who end up taking their own lives. And unfortunately, we see this happen a lot even with younger people who are not very grounded, who are not very settled. And it's tragic when you read about it. And I read the stories and it's so saddening to read of the young people, the teenagers, whether it's bullying that happens, that causes people to then just take their own life because they feel like their life is just a living hell and they feel like there's no way out of it. And it just feels like every day they're terrified or they're scared to face whatever they're going to have to face from other people. Look, stay with it. It will pass. It may not feel like it's going to pass. It will pass. Okay, people have to endure. Unfortunately, there's wicked people out there. There's people who do bad things. There's sinners that just do really bad things. But it will pass. It will pass. And, you know, I read recently about some other event that happened with these, that happens online with these extortioners that will tell people or get them to put themselves in a shameful position. Those leave it at that. And will then threaten to expose their shame to the whole world. And I was just reading about a teenager that took his own life because he was worried that someone was going to post all of these positions or whatever images of him being in a very shameful way to the world, to all of his family and friends and didn't want to have to deal with that. And that's sad. But nothing like that, you need to, people need to understand that no matter what happens, no matter what you face or have to go through, there is another day that will come and it does get better. And seek the Lord because the Lord is your defender. The Lord is your helper. The Lord will get you through. In Romans 15, and look, no matter what you've done, you've got family that's going to love you, you've got friends, someone's going to be there for you, you know, your church, we're here for you. And unfortunately, sometimes things you don't really want to talk about, you don't want to, you know, let people in, but just know this, that we care about you. And if you don't want to talk about something, you know, taking your own life is going to have an impact on other people. It's not the answer. It's not going to solve anything for you at all. It's not a solution. It just causes more problems. Romans 15, look at verse number one for the church. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell on me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. That hopeless situation that you might feel yourself in. Patience means you just endure. OK, through the patience, you just you just have to get to the next day, get to the next day, get to the next day. And the comfort is going to come from the scriptures. The patience and the scriptures are going to bring you hope. To bring hope. Get in the Bible more. Read God's word. God's word is full of hope. There's lots of hope. We have a hope of resurrection, right? We have the hope of the return of Jesus Christ. We have a hope of many things. Many things. We have hope. We have hope of a Lord that doesn't leave you or forsake you. You may be tried, but he doesn't leave you or forsake you. You may not think he's there, but he's there. You may not feel it. But stick with it. You'll see it later. The things you have to have faith in today, you see later. This is now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jump down to verse number 13. The Bible says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Number one step for people who are depressed, you know, someone who's depressed in their life versus make sure they're saved, given the gospel, given the good news. It's a reason to rejoice in salvation alone. If you are saved, hey, rejoice in that salvation and think on that. And remember, God has saved me from from everything. God is my defender. God is my help. God is my strength. God will comfort me. Continue to seek to seek him. Stay faithful. Don't give up. Don't give up. That is the only way to truly fail. Even if everything goes wrong, you just need to keep moving forward and things happen in our lives that go wrong and go sideways. Probably a lot. I don't know about you to seem to go for me. But even when things are going wrong, you still just keep going forward and make it right. Always move forward. No matter what the issue is, there's nothing too big. If you're if you're still here, if God hasn't chosen to just be like, all right, I'm done with you now. Then you're here for a reason. God's got a purpose for you. And maybe just maybe consider this. Maybe. Maybe you getting through your darkest hour and getting to that point where you would even contemplate taking your life. Maybe getting through that, then you can use that to help other people that get in the exact same situation that you get into. And maybe you sticking through it can help someone else to not end their life. Through your testimony. But they won't even know that if you're not going out and putting other people first and trying to help them. Right. Spires have ordered prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you. Thank you so much for the comfort and education and the consolation that we see through your word, through the Holy Ghost, through Jesus Christ. Dear Lord, I pray that you would help us help. And if there is, Lord, if there's anyone specifically, especially now that is truly struggling internally and we just don't know about it. Please, please bless them. Please help them. Dear Lord, please strengthen them. I pray that you would please help us who are who are strong to be able to support those that are weak right now. Dear Lord, and that you would just help them be comforted through your word. And God help all of us to retain these great truths, to retain the strength and the comfort from scripture. That when we do end up facing our own struggles, our own dark times, Lord, that you would please just help us through that. We would realize that ending our own lives is never, ever the answer. I pray you please help us encourage others that might get to that point to realize that that that's not the solution and it's not an answer. And I pray that you would just guide us and lead us. Lord, help us to reach people to Christ that if anyone ever were to fall into that that condition. That at the very least, dear Lord, we could say, well, they put their trust in Jesus Christ. Help us to preach that gospel so that however people end up dying, they still will have eternal life and be saved. Lord, help our church in our endeavor to preach the gospel. Lord, we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. We're gonna sing one last song before dismissed this morning. Brother Peter, will you please lead us? Yes, sir. All right, church, you can open up your hymnals. Song number 351. Song number 351, tell it to Jesus. Song 351. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first. All right, church, let's sing this out in the first.