Combating Suicide and Hopelessness: A Christ-Centered Approach

0:00:33 Today, If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five our ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. So as we look into what God has said, to us and somebody might say, right at the start, God. That's the whole problem. Right? Here to talk about God and the issue of suicide, yet exactly that for this reason. I don't have to tell you that the trends are overwhelming. In fact, if people If people really want to get serious about numbers, like how many people were infected by COVID, how many people died, how many people die from motorcycle accidents a year, people should really start looking into the amount of of suicide that takes place and death by suicide. We're living in an age right now where it is just absolutely unhinged. How do I know? Well, first of all, as a pastor of a church, I know this. It's quickly becoming the the number one reason why we're doing funerals. It's it's one of the reasons why our phones ring off the hook is people are either thinking suicidal thoughts or their kid they found outlifted suicidal note either on their bed or in their diary. They're talking about darkness. So when I bring up God, people don't wanna hear that, but I want you to just bear with me for a moment. It's the very reason why this entire drama is being played out at a time like this. So just bear with me for a moment. 0:02:19 Jesus said, Jesus of the Bible. He said that I have come to give you life and that more abundantly said that in John ten verse ten. And he also went on to comment in that very verse referring to Satan that he has come to rob and to kill and to destroy. Jesus came to give life and that were abundantly. In other words, you ought to be living a life that is thrilling. How many people can say that today? Oh my gosh. I love my life. Yeah. There's bumps in the road. I deal with cancer or sickness. Setbacks, financial issues, I love my life. It's meaningful, it's impactful, and God's using me. Did you know that's what God wants you to be able to say? And I'll come back in a moment and reconcile how can you have a wonderful life and have cancer? But the other side of this is that Jesus made it very clear that Satan has come to Rob us to kill us and destroy us. 0:03:18 I wanna ask you. Are people being killed? Are people being robbed? Are are people being ripped off? The answer to that is absolutely yes. 0:03:32 What in the world is going on in the culture that's around us? Is lawlessness? Is off the hinges? I just heard this morning on the news that Washington DC Watch this. Washington DC is now the most dangerous city in America for you to walk down the street and or to be a Store attendant at like a seven eleven or wherever. You're gonna get bumped off or robbed In a high probability situation in Washington, D. C. Isn't it ironic? It's the very place laws are made. Right? Washington DC makes the laws and yet today it's the most dangerous place to be. And you know what their mantra is constantly Where do you gun control? Gun control? Gun control? You know what? That's the stupidest thing that anybody can say. Whenever you hear a politician, or some official say, well, in light of this recent violence, we need stronger gun laws. You wanna know how dumb that is? It's ultimately dumb. It's a smokescreen. I I just I give people more credit than than what you might think. I think people are smarter than what they led on. People who are saying, we need more gun control. 0:04:52 Joe Biden right out of his mouth after the Nashville Church Christian School Shooting. First thing out of his mouth, actually, the the first thing into his mouth was an ice cream. And the second thing out of his mouth was a joke about kids. And somewhere about the seventh thing out of his mouth was In light of Nashville, we need gun control. He didn't say my the the parents, he didn't say we need to address the soul of the nation. He he he didn't do any of that. Quite frankly, he's incapable of doing that. He's not dumb, he's just repeating the ideology of a world view. And look, if this hurts your feelings, then maybe it's for a reason. If you're a Democrat or a woke Republican, you don't wanna hear this kind of stuff, but the WorldView Agenda that you have, you're not dumb, you're just propagating the cause. And the cause is Marxist and totalitarian to say, we need to take everybody's guns away and then nobody's gonna get killed by guns. Listen, you can take all the guns away and melt them down into a giant steel ball the size of the moon. 0:06:10 I just heard the other night on Tucker Carlson that there's something like three hundred and fifty three hundred and fifty million people that live in America, and there's five hundred million guns. Five hundred million guns. That's awesome. So how can you say that? Oh, just calm down. Think about this for a moment. If gun if gun control or gun positions the problem and people are killing themselves or killing others, either suicide by self or suicide by cop. You know, that's very popular these days. To want to take your own life, but you don't have the guts to do it, so you go create a crime and then point even if it's a wooden gun. It looks like a gun. And the cops will kill you justifiably and so they should because you're threatening the culture around you or others. 0:07:13 But keep this in mind. If you've got three hundred and fifty million Americans and five hundred million guns. Look at the ratio. That actually makes America one of the safest places on Earth. If you've got that many guns available, that means there's an amazing amount. There's three hundred and forty nine million people who are responsible goers. They They're responsible registered gun owners. If you've got five hundred thousand weapons, that are not being used in evil every day. Think about it. That makes America a pretty safe place. I guarantee this, there's no five hundred thousand guns in China. There's no five hundred thousand guns in Russia. 0:08:10 So my argument is this, you can outlaw guns all you want. You'll just take away guns from good people. The bad people will never surrender their guns. And if they don't have a gun, as soon as they find out that you don't have a gun, they're gonna go find somebody on the street of LA or Chicago. And on the so called right black market, they're gonna get a gun, and they're gonna rob people, and it never goes well, and I'm not making this up. This is how it goes. 0:08:37 Notice gun free zones is where bad guys commit crimes. Why do bad guys go to theaters and shoot people? Because a theater is a a gun free zone. Why do people attack schools? Schools are gun free zones? In fact, in this recent attack in Nashville, did you know that the FBI discovered that in the notes in writings of Audrey Hale, the female that was heavily injected with to testosterone to make a gender transition that by the way played radically into the effect of her inability to cope and to function, probably center into profound depression, but at the same time testosterone jacks up the level of aggression. Men deal with this all the time. And a woman dealing with it, it's not a good thing. And so what wound up happening is that she was a woman transitioning to try to be a guy. And so how much I'm just asking this question, I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV. I'm just saying to you right now that how much of the the injection of testosterone and hormone replace treatment therapy was she going through that helped this crime be perpetrated in this murderous event take place. 0:10:02 We need to really really watch out about this. So here's the thing. You wanna stop suicide? Right? Of course, we do. Lib LIVES are going to say, and woke Republicans are going to say, we need gun laws. Go ahead and pass them. Not gonna change one statistic. I promise you because the change is in the human heart. 0:10:21 We Imagine if we launched a nationwide campaign. Starting today that we are going to instill hope, meaning, and purpose in people's lives. We are going to start a national campaign of why your life matters. And maybe we dropped in in a in a five second clip of somebody like Tim Thibaut saying something about why life matters or the young generation. Sam Howell, the starting quarterback next year, this year, I should say, for the Washington Red Washington commanders. Young guy loves Jesus. He's got his head screwed on straight. He's got a lot to live for. What if a Sam Howell or what if some young leader said, hey, this is why you should live. Don't end your life. 0:11:19 And every news channel was forced by the federal government to make that a public address announcement. Don't take your life. There's hope. You've need to find out a purpose for your life. And there is a purpose for your Imagine if they let me this old sixty five year old grandpa go on the air and say, hey, everybody, just listen fifteen seconds. There's a reason to live. There's hope to live. Don't take your life. God's got a purpose. Go to this website, blah blah blah dot com. Why not? Oh, no, no, you can't do that. What's going on here? 0:11:58 I believe that there is a demonic agenda that people may or may not be, probably most of them do not know, that they're being used by Satan to bring our young people to the brink of hopelessness. Suicide is ravaging people. And listen, Those of you who might be young and I know I know some young people watch and listen to this podcast because many places I'm stopped by young people I was just in Seattle or Portland. I forget where San Francisco. It doesn't matter. I was at some airport where two young people who are engaged, they were in their early twenties, came up to me. And they said, we we listened to your podcast. And we we we we can we get a picture? I was blown away because what do I have to say to some young people like that? Well, it's not me. 0:12:46 Don't look at the package. Or don't look at the delivery man, bring in the package, look at what's packaged, and truth is packaged here. Let me tell you right now. That if you had a reason to live and you had a purpose to live, that's how you mitigate the problems in life. When you find out that maybe your parents don't love you or maybe they do love you and they just they just died. Maybe your best friend just committed suicide, so you're thinking about joining your best friend. When you read a post or maybe ten people got angry because you posted something and they just they gave you a thumbs down. You think your life's over. I wanna tell you something right now you've been lied to. You've been fooled with. You've been tampered with. Because that's not the purpose and meaning of your life. See, you and I live in a culture right now. 0:13:41 If somebody poo poo is your idea, if somebody says something to you where you know, what's wrong with you. Immediately, Satan grabs that like an arrow and shoots it into your head and you you start thinking about it. In fact, check this out. Is this not true? A hundred people, I know this for a fact, happens to me every week, a couple times a week. A hundred people can say to you, That was wonderful. I heard what you said or I read your book or I listened to the sermon. That was wonderful. Do you know I can't tell you and and quote that accurately by anybody? But the one hundred and first person who comes up and says, you know what? You're an idiot. You should just shut up. Listen. When I go home at night, guess guess what I have in my head. A hundred compliments, no way. I've got that one guy, his words bouncing around in my head. Then I've got to figure out, am I gonna entertain that? Or am I gonna say, what was it that that guy said that could be true? I wanna learn from it. That criticism that cut me, maybe he's right. Listen, sometimes husbands and wives will say to us what others won't say, pure truth. Lisa might say to me Jack, you should have said this or you shouldn't have said that or you should have stood that way instead of this way. You you should have you hear what I'm saying. 0:15:15 Whenever we are questioned by nature as a fallen human being, we don't like it. But if we calm down and listen and glean out of what's being said, we can take that thing, that post, that criticism, that hurts, And instead of it leading us to a suicide, we can actually transform it by bringing that thought under the captivity of Christ, the bible says. In other words, we look at what was said by the critic, and we ask ourselves, what can I glean out of, if anything, what that person said? Look, if somebody says you're a jerk and you should jump off the end of the pier, there's nothing I can do with that. So I take that thought and I just say, Lord, take it out of my life. That's nothing I can do with that. I can't respond to that. That's not constructive at all. Doesn't give me an idea to analyze it. But if somebody begins to critique with some observation, I can pick and choose what is actually good about what they said that felt so bad. Does it make sense? Use it. Use the criticism. Don't let it kill you. 0:16:23 And when somebody says to you friends, listen young ones, when somebody says to you in public school or college or university, you know, have you ever are you a girl? And and have you ever thought about being intimate with another girl? Oh, you must be gay. You you must be Don't do that. That Satan using a person or a teacher to plant that thought in your head. And I know I know what I'm talking about right now because I've got parents telling me that their eight year old comes home from public school and says, hey mom, dad, Did you know that I might be a boy or a girl? I had somebody text me last night after our evening service and say, the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing with my family is because my nine year old boy came home from public school and said, I might not be a boy. And so pastor Jack, this is why we've made this decision to get our kids into a stable Christian private school. This is really happening. 0:17:31 Satan is attacking you. He's attacking me. Don't write it off. I'm not talking about some guy dressed up in tight red underwear, in a pitchfork. I'm talking about what Jesus is talking about. Your life is a target. God loves you, and there's a purpose for your life. And when you hear somebody say, you're worthless. You know what? I didn't even know why I brought you into this world. Or can't you be like your brother? Or why can't you be more like your sisters? Listen, you need to take that and listen, you need to be strong, you need to take it and say, God, that really hurt. Help me to cope with what was just said. Don't think, yeah, you know what? You're probably right. I guess I should probably end it all. 0:18:23 I just did a funeral the other day for somebody who didn't know the lord and made a mistake at his company. That he works for. It was an an expensive it was a very expensive mistake, but he he was in the union, the company is built in such a way that it can take that kind of mistake. It can take that kind of hit. His job wasn't being threatened because of the mistake? He had worked at this job for decades, but he had prided himself of always being right I learned that he always had to have the last word in an argument, that's pride. I learned that he had to always look perfect, that's pride. And that he would remind people about how other people said how great he is, that's pride. 0:19:19 When your world is built on image, friends listen. When your world is built on image, then you'll go through any thing, any menipi ablation to try to maintain that image that you think that you should have. So people today age, And so they can't handle that. So they go and get Botox. And then that's not enough. Or their husband is looking at pornography and then turns to their wife and says, why don't you go to the cosmetic surgeon yourself? That's not gonna help. A wrinkle develops. So you need to get that fixed. Or whatever the case might be. Maybe maybe someone has got to, maybe start to instead of parenting their their teenagers or their young adults, they start trying to become their best friends. And they dressed like them and they act like it. It's not gonna help. 0:20:30 The reason why you're doing that is because there's insecurities that are just reaking havoc in your life, and you don't have to have those anymore, at all. Because when you find out that your existence is God, that he has a purpose for your life that's meaningful. You can grow older with confidence because he knows exactly what he's doing. My friend, listen. Suicide violence, trying to change your gender, trying to change yourself into somebody that you're not, Without Christ is gonna lead to suicide, it's gonna lead to destruction. You don't need that. So listen, this is heavy stuff. But it's reality, is it not? 0:21:11 So I wanna encourage you, if these podcasts or making a difference in your life, at least creating conversation. Maybe this one's gonna create a conversation, share with people. Hit the subscribe button. And send a message by the way to the podcast brainiacs who monitor these things at the big tech world and let's push our numbers up. If we're speaking truth, click the subscribe button. Let's get our numbers up there to get the truth out. 0:21:40 I don't need to do this. I've got a lot going on in my life, but we believe this could matter. This could we believe this could save your life. And so the truth is it's time to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life, and that's what we're all about. Real life. I'm not asking you for money. I'm asking you to share this with other people. And you can do that by going to jackhibbs.com and share so much more content with others. You can find out more content right there and all kinds of air areas. But by all means, please subscribe that helps us contend with the big tech goons that try to shut us down and cancel us all the time. 0:22:24 But listen, I appreciate these times. I'm I'm encouraged by the success this podcast. Are generating, but just spread the word. That's the greatest way that you could say, hey, thanks Jack, is if you hit subscribe and share it with others. So God, I just pray right now that you'd bless those on the other end of this little camera here, especially those that are thinking that their life doesn't matter, that the words of Jesus himself off which just hit them right now. For God's sword of the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe him would not perish but have ever blessed in life. Trust Christ. Don't listen to others. Give your life to him. Listen to him. This Jack Hibbs' podcast as well as all the broadcast reach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn and more and stay connected.