Someone Wants You Dead (and the Good News)

Cults of death are nothing new, but they take different forms. There’s a Netflix show, 13 Reasons Why about the reasons a girl named Hannah commits suicide. There’s a new club called “The Blue Whale” which instructs members to perform certain tasks. The last one before death is carving the image of a blue whale on one’s forearm. After that, the participant is told to kill himself. A teen girl coaches her boyfriend to commit suicide in his truck. "Don't think about it; just do it," she says. I remember when I was in junior high school that some of the kids in my hometown killed other young people in a Satanic ritual.

Why would anyone think it was okay to commit suicide or kill someone else? Why would any teen actually play a suicide game?

Because someone wants everyone dead.

On June 24, CNN aired a special report about Silicon Valley and the executives that had committed suicide. Why did they do it? Because they felt the pressure to always be strong and successful, to never be down, never fail. When they suffered mentally, they felt they couldn’t share their feelings with anyone else. So, they went further down into deep depression. Some took their own lives.

Someone wanted them dead.

Parents published a unique obituary for their daughter, who hung herself. She’d been bullied at school. Her parents sent a message to the bullies, telling them they’d been effective in making their daughter feel worthless. She was a beautiful teen with long red hair. Why would anyone bully her?

Someone wanted her to consider suicide.

It has always been this way. Satan wants to kill people. He can’t stand the thought that humans would want to live happy lives and serve God. He is constantly lying to people’s minds so they think if they kill themselves, they’ll be done with their suffering. Even some Christians believe this lie.

Read these descriptions of Satan all through the Bible:

• God said, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:17). Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die (Genesis 3:1-4). When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they died spiritually. Later, they died physically, too. Before sin, there was no death. The Bible describes it this way, Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Romans 5:12).
• Jesus said, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it (John 8:44).
• When God gave Satan permission to afflict Job, Satan would have killed him, but the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life (Job 2:6).
• Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve (Luke 22:3). And, Judas decided to betray Jesus, so that the Jewish leaders could kill Him.
• Jesus said, And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28).
• Jesus said, I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God (John 8:37, 40).
• Jesus said, The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10).
• The Apostle Paul was instructing the believers about a disobedient brother: To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:5).
• Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).
• Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14).

Satan—the devil—is the person who wants to drag everyone he can to their deaths. He would like for everyone to go to hell, too. By the way, hell wasn’t made for people. Jesus said that the everlasting fire was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41b). It’s sad and unnecessary that any humans would go there!

The devil wants death, but the good news is that Jesus is life! What a contrast!

Jesus said, The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:

no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

(John 14:6)

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son,

and believeth on him, may have everlasting life:

and I will raise him up at the last day.

(John 6:40)

There’s even more good news! The devil was conquered at the cross. His end is sure. This will happen after the millennial reign of Christ: And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever (Revelation 20:10).

Jesus died so that you don’t need to die. He paid the price for your sins on the cross. Probably the best-known Bible verse of all is this:

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.

(John 3:16)

Do you know Him? Jesus came to give you LIFE.