Combating Suicide and Hopelessness: A Christ-Centered Approach

Real life presents the Jack Kibs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Hey guys, Pastor Jack Kibs here and welcome to the podcast. We're going to be talking about suicide and the things that lead to suicide and you might be quite surprised that it could be very little that could cause a person to come to that point of hopelessness. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibs.com slash podcast. 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 star 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 Kibs. 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? You're going to talk about God in the issue of suicide. Yeah, 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 died from motorcycle accidents a year, people should really start looking into the amount 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 number one reason why we're doing miracles. 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 out left a suicidal note either on their bed or in their diary. They're talking about darkness. So when I bring up God, people don't want to 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 out at a time like this. So just bear with me for a moment. Jesus said, Jesus of the Bible, he said that I've come to give you life and that more abundantly, see that in John 10 verse 10. 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 more abundantly. In other words, I've got 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, ideal 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, reconciled. 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. I want to ask you, are people being killed? Are people being robbed? Are people being ripped off? The answer to that is absolutely yes. 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, D.C. Watch this. Washington, D.C. 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 7-11 or wherever. You're going to 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, D.C. makes the laws and yet today it's the most dangerous place to be. And do you know what their mantra is constantly? We need 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 want to know how dumb that is? It's ultimately dumb. It's a smoke screen. I just, I give people more credit than what you might think. I think people are smarter than what they let on. People who are saying we need more gun control. Joe Biden right out of his mouth after the Nashville church Christian school shooting. First thing out of his mouth. Actually, 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 parents, he didn't say we need to address the soul of the nation. He didn't do any of that. Quite frankly, he's incapable of doing that. He's not dumb though. 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 want to hear this kind of stuff. But the world view agenda that you have, you're not dumb. You're just propagating the cause. And the cause is Marxists and totalitarian to say, we need to take everybody's guns away. And then nobody's going to 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. I just heard the other night on Tucker Carlson that there's something like 350, 350 million people that live in America and there's 500 million guns. 500 million guns. That's awesome. How can you say that? Oh, it's just calm down. Think about this for a moment. 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. But keep this in mind. If you've got 350 million Americans and 500 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 349 million people who are responsible gun owners. They're responsible registered gun owners. If you've got 500,000 weapons that are not being used in evil every day, think about it. That makes America a pretty safe place. I guarantee you this. There's no 500,000 guns in China. There's no 500,000 guns in Russia. 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 going to go find somebody on the streets of L.A. or Chicago and on the so-called right black market, they're going to get a gun and they're going to rob people and it never goes well. And I'm not making this up. This is how it goes. 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 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 and writings of Audrey Hale, the female that was heavily injected with testosterone to make a gender transition? That, by the way, played radically into the effect of her inability to cope into function, probably centered into profound depression, but at the same time, testosterone rejects 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 injection of testosterone and hormone replacement therapy was she going through that helped this crime be perpetrated in this murderous event take place? We need to really, really watch out about this. So here's the thing. You want to stop suicide, right? Of course we do. Libs are going to say, and woke Republicans are going to say, we need gun laws. Go ahead and pass them. It's not going to change one statistic. I promise you, because the change is in the human heart. 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 five-second clip of somebody like Tim Tebow 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 Reds, 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. 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 need to find out a purpose for your life. And there is a purpose for your life. Imagine if they let me this old 65-year-old grandpa go on the air and say, hey, everybody just listen 15 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. Why not? Oh, no, no, you can't do that. What's going on here? 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 doesn't matter. I was at some airport where two young people who are engaged. They were in their early 20s came up to me and they said, we listen to your podcast. 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. Don't look at the package or don't look at the delivery man bringing 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 10 people got angry because you posted something and they just they gave you a thumbs down. You think your life's over. I want to 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. Somebody poo, poo is your idea of 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 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 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 going to entertain that? Or am I going to say, what was it that that guy said that could be true? I want to 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 should have, you hear what I'm saying? 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 into 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. This isn't going to be 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. 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 have you ever thought about being intimate with another girl? Oh, you must be gay. You must be, don't do that. That's 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. 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 don'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. 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 expensive, it was a very expensive mistake, but 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. I've always been 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. When your world is built on image, friends, listen. When your world is built on image, then you'll go through any thing, any manipulation 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 going to 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 teenagers or their young adults, they start trying to become their best friends. And they dress like them and they act like that. It's not going to help. The reason why you're doing that is because there's insecurities that are just wreaking 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 going to lead to suicide. It's going to lead to destruction. You don't need that. So listen, this is heavy stuff, but it's reality, is it not? So I want to encourage you, if these podcasts are making a difference in your life, at least creating conversation. Maybe this one's going to create a conversation, share it 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. 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 Jackibs.com and share so much more content with others. You can find out more content right there and all kinds of 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. But listen, I appreciate these times. I'm encouraged by the success these podcasts 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 would just hit them right now. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Trust Christ. Don't listen to others. Give your life to him. Listen to him.