Success Not the Answer
Wealth and success are not the ultimate answers. Not having to be concerned about the needs of life doesn't guarantee happiness. Tiny Denmark, with one of the most advanced social welfare systems and the highest standard of living in the world, is cursed with the highest rate of self-destruction in the Western world. Nearly twice as many Danes take their own lives as die in automobile accidents. Close behind Denmark is another advanced social-welfare state, Sweden.
Having the needs of life and the worry about those needs taken care of does not automatically provide contentment, regardless of what the Haitians and Vietnamese refugees think.
In many of the more affluent areas of the United States, the death rate by suicide among young people is above the national average. Growing up with wealth or having needs guaranteed by the state means there is nothing left to work for. This world's standard of success is not the panacea to end all woes and solve the problems of life for either young or old. All too often it destroys any real purpose in life. Without something to strive for, to aim for and to hope for, the meaning goes out of life. Not knowing the real purpose for humanity the reason to live vanishes.
God told the people of ancient Israel: "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 16:25). People daily are choosing the way that seems right to them. But the way that seems right ends only in empty, frustrated lives — and, for many, suicide.
Medicine the Answer?
Suicide is not a pathological problem. It is not a biological problem of the brain. It is not a genetic problem of the brain. It is a problem of the mind.
More than half of all physical ills are mentally or spiritually caused. One medical expert estimated that 70 to 90 percent of his patients fell within the category of those having nothing wrong with them physically and whose physical ills are due only to the vicissitudes, the problems of life.
All too often, then, the supposed answer to the patient's problem lies in self-destruction. Doctors can't seem to stem the tide of suicide. Studies in San Francisco, Philadelphia and other U.S. cities indicate that more than 70 percent of the persons who commit or attempt suicide are or recently have been under a physician's care.
Many times the drugs prescribed to help relieve the problem are the instrument used to end the problem. So apparently medical assistance isn't the final right solution either.
Medicine and medical treatment aren't the answer. Wealth isn't the answer. What, then, is the answer? We are able to make nuclear bombs, rockets, spaceships and send men to the moon. We put a space shuttle into orbit and bring it safely back to earth to be used again and again. We plot courses across millions of miles of space to bring our technological instruments close to distant planets. In every way, we are advancing in technological skills and abilities.
Yet we are unable to chart the course of human life in the paths of happiness.
Reading the Warning Signs
There are warning signs of a pending attempt at self-destruction. They are often silent pleas for someone to hear. The indications are basically the same for either young or old. Suicide is a problem of all ages and it is increasing in all age groups.
A threat of suicide should be taken seriously. It is rarely done on a spur-of-the-moment impulse. There may be a preoccupation with death or the afterlife. Abrupt changes in behavior, moodiness, withdrawal, aggressiveness, insomnia, lethargy and lack of interest in personal appearance are also potential signs. Loneliness and lack of friends can be indicators as can the giving away of prized possessions.
A sudden burst of euphoria and an increase of activity following such talk or actions doesn't mean the worries are past. Often the arriving at a decision to take one's life is a momentary lift because the decision has been made. It helps if you can get the person to discuss what is on his or her mind. In many cities there are counseling centers to help with these problems. It helps to understand what the physical effects of life are. But the real cure is to find the cause.
What is needed is a genuine solution of a totally different kind. Present-day religion does not hold the key to this problem because it doesn't know the reason for man's existence. There is far too large a gap between the 20th century religion as it is preached in most churches and the first-century religion taught by Jesus Christ to his apostles.
The young person or the older adult who has to face the apparent futility of everyday life, who has been looking for answers and seeking to escape emptiness, sees no hope in the world's society. Every day there is the threat of nuclear war, economic chaos, unemployment and all the other ever-present problems of this hectic modern-day life — but no answers. No hope. With these pressures, some find it extremely difficult to recognize the presence of a real God who does have the answers and final solution to life's cares.
Source of Real Help
All these poor, unfortunate potential suicides don't know how to get real help. But there is a source of absolute power, a source of complete confidence and faith that would see them through every conceivable problem to the day of their natural death. That Personage is Jesus Christ.
When he was a human being walking this earth, he was the kind of person who knew how to deal with practical people problems. He knew just the right antidote for all the physical, mental, emotional and psychological problems plaguing the people of his time.
Jesus was strong and forceful when he had to be — but also meek, lowly, humble, gentle, the Lamb of God, a very real friend in time of need — not a trigger-happy, shoot-from-the-hip type who would jump down your throat at the slightest provocation.
Jesus said: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:28-30).
At the outset of his ministry in a small Jewish synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus Christ forcefully recited his commission of compassion — his absolute unwavering intention to relieve human suffering. He said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives . . . to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke 4:18).
This he did at every turn of his ministry. He once said: "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine" (John 10:14). Jesus Christ pictured himself as leaving the 99 dwelling safely in the sheepfold and going to search in a ravine or desert for that one poor lost lamb (Matt. 18:11-14).
Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. He is willing to buy back each one of us as his own purchased possession. One of the proverbs says, "The way of transgressors is hard" (Prov. 13:15). We have sinned and brought upon ourselves the wretched side effects that are the automatic products of transgressing God's laws (see I John 3:4, Rom. 6:23). Sin is the real source of suicidal thoughts.
But Jesus Christ is God — not a mere, mistake-ridden, human go-between. He is perfect, eternal, living Spirit personality who is even now at the right hand of the Father to plead our cases before God. The apostle Paul wrote, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15).
Jesus Christ talked to his disciples about daily problems. “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" (Matt. 6:25).
Christ wasn't telling them it was wrong to meet these needs. He was telling them it was wrong to lust after these things and overly concern themselves with thoughts of physical welfare.
Christ said in another place, John 10:10, that the very reason he came to this earth was that we might have life, not death, and that we might have it more abundantly. Again he said, "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth" (III John 2).
Jesus Christ meant what he said! He wants us to have an abundant life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the wealth and prosperity with which many nations have been so bountifully blessed.
There Is Hope
Can you imagine it? Life, the most precious, wonderful, exhilarating, thrilling possession of each human creature — life, with its marvelous opportunities, its challenges and adventures, its sorrows and joys, its successes and its failures — and, above all, its awesome potential for the future — life cast worthlessly to the ground by suicide!
How far we have departed from God! Many is the suicide victim who tried religion! He heard all the wonderful things about "salvation," "sanctification" and "deliverance." He heard all about Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, and about the happiness he was supposed to experience! But still he committed suicide!
Why!
Because he didn't hear the plain truth of Almighty God! What he heard was without the real power to change his life! He wasn't able to find that happiness he sought.
You either have the truth, or you do not. You are either in real contact with the real God — or you are not! It's time you knew where the only source of peace and happiness is to be found — knew where true security and safety are to be found for you and yours — knew where God is doing his work and how you can have a fulfilling part in it!
Jesus came *preaching the message of the kingdom of God! He foretold our days — telling exactly how this pulsating time of history would end! He is, at this moment, beginning to intervene in human affairs! He will soon return to this earth, to set up his own kingdom on it — and bring the world, forcibly, relief from its brain-chilling problems that lead to, among other things, self-murder!
God has the solution, not just a solution. He offers each person life! Life that is meaningful, interesting, joyous, happy, abundant — right here and now, and life for all eternity, in the kingdom of God!
Peter mentioned this life in I Peter 1:3, "a life of hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (Moffat translation).
What is this life of hope Peter holds out to us? It is the life in the kingdom of God! — and under the government of God in the world tomorrow. It is good news (the word gospel means "good news"). “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. . . . the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert" (Isa. 35:5-6). The blind, deaf, crippled shall all become normal and enjoy life to the full.
There will be no more warring among nations (Isa. 2:4). No more killing one another and taking one man's freedom away from him. No fear of nuclear bombs, or any other kind of bomb, for they won't be allowed.
There will be no more emptiness and uselessness.
And there will be no more suicide! Everyone will want to live in the glorious world tomorrow! Everyone will know the real purpose in life and the reason for his existence.
If you don't as yet understand your real purpose for being here on this earth, write now for the amazing, breathtaking booklet that will show you the reason for your existence and the only real answer to the problem of suicide — the realization of what life is actually all about!
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