Hey man, so keep your place there in 1 Samuel chapter 31. We're talking about a very specific subject this morning, and as I said in the announcements, this is a subject that I've never preached a sermon on this subject before. It came up in Acts chapter 16, and I kind of just thought I've never addressed that before. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember bringing it up as part of a sermon. So that's something that kind of popped out to me. So we're going to look at it this morning. What we're going to look at this morning, it's kind of a sensitive topic. Many people may have dealt with this with people that they know or love in their life, but I'm going to try to give you some biblical context this morning, and what I want to talk about is the subject of suicide, the subject of someone that would take their own life. In 1 Samuel chapter 31, we see an example of this in the Bible. So I'm going to show you this morning that the Bible actually talks, it doesn't talk specifically about it in these instances, but there's very many examples of people that do take their own lives in the Bible. So we're going to look at some examples of that. We're going to look at then how we can apply those examples. That's the whole idea of studying the Bible, reading the Bible, is how we can look at what the Bible has for us and then apply that to our lives, apply that to those around us. So if you do run into somebody in your life that is struggling with this, struggling with even depression to the point where they would be considering something like this, hopefully this will arm you with some biblical tools where you can handle this. So first we'll look at some examples in the Bible of both saved people and unsaved people in the Bible that take their own lives, because it's very interesting that in the Bible you have both of these scenarios. You have saved people in the Bible that take their own lives and you have unsaved people in the Bible that take their own lives. And then at the end of the sermon after we've gone through these examples and looked at what God thinks of suicide, I'm just going to give you three simple steps on, you know, or if someone's listening and is struggling with this, three simple steps to move past this in your life or to help somebody move past this in your life. That's why God gave us his word. God gave us his word not only so we could be saved but so we could live this successful Christian life and be profitable to other people. So let's apply that and let's apply that this morning. Look at 1 Samuel chapter 31, look at verse number one. The Bible says, Now the Philistines fought against Israel and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons and the Philistines slew Jonathan and Abinadab and Melchushua saw sons. And the battle went sore against Saul and the archers hit him and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said, Saul do his upper bearer, draw thy sword and thrust me therewith. So he first asked somebody else, so the situation in King Saul, who we know if you know anything about King Saul, the first king of Israel, he was less than successful at being a king. Saul was saved as a young man and he became a wicked king. He turned against the Lord, he rebelled against God. Samuel actually used that word, rebellion. He's like, you are in rebellion, that's where Samuel says rebellion is as witchcraft. He's saying you have rebelled against the Lord, you're not listening to him. Saul was filled with pride. And God basically brought this army against Saul. He's actually in judgment as this army of the Philistines is coming against him. And he asks his armor bearer, he's wounded and he asks his armor bearer, just kill me. So these people don't capture me alive.  And look, you can see that even though they didn't capture him alive, they still did abuse him.  So look at what happens here.  But his armor bearer would not, for he was so afraid.  He wouldn't kill, the Lord's anointed, therefore Saul took a sword and fell upon it. So Saul committed suicide. He killed himself. All right? And yes, he was wounded.  So we'll leave that one there. There's some other cases in the Bible of people that we know that are saved that did commit suicide. If you turn to Judges chapter 16, turn to Judges chapter 16, one of the judges actually killed himself, actually took his own life. If you look at Judges chapter 16, look at verse number 25. This is the story, of course, of Samson. So Samson was a judge in Israel, in the book of Judges. Samson's a great story in the Bible about just a man that didn't fulfill what God wanted him to fulfill. He was always kind of rebelling against what the Lord wanted him to do, seeking his own selfish desires and selfish pleasures, even though he was still used as an instrument to judge the Philistines on many different occasions. He definitely didn't do it in what we would call a perfect way. In Judges chapter 16, he ends up getting, of course, he ends up getting captured by the Philistines after he tells Delilah where his strength comes from. She cuts his hair. They're able to capture him. They burn out his eyes or gouge out his eyes, and they're having this massive party in this large building, and they have Samson chained, and they're making fun of him. They're mocking him. They're beating him and all these different things. And in verse number 25 of Judges chapter 16, so again, Samson, it's actually sort of a similar pattern, and that's kind of what I want to get you to see here. It's a similar pattern to Saul, maybe not quite as bad, but it's a similar pattern with Samson that he's kind of gotten himself into a bad spot. He's kind of gotten himself into a bad situation. And in verse 25, the Bible says, and it came to pass when their hearts were married. This is when Samson is being made fun of, made sport of by the Philistines in this massive, and they're having a party and making fun of him. And it came to pass when their hearts were married, this is the Philistines, that they said, call for the Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house and he made them sport and they set him between the pillars. So they're making fun of him, they're using him as a, you know, they're mocking him and all this. He's in prison, he's blind, verse 26. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, suffer me that I may feel the pillars were upon this house, the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Now when the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there, and there were upon the roof about 3,000 men and women that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord and said, O Lord, God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me. I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines from my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which was born up, and on one with his right hand, and the other with his left.  And he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein.  So he killed thousands of people here, you know, is what it sounds like.  So archaeology kind of history and archaeology kind of validates this, not that we need that. But the point is Samson, he killed himself here. He committed suicide in order to, in this case, avenge the enemies of the Lord. Again, he was used by God in this last moment of his life to judge the Philistines. But we see some similarities. This is what I'm trying to get you to understand here. Both of these men were saved. Both of these men made many mistakes in their lives. You know, that basically sin led them to this point that they found themselves in. And in these cases of Saul and of Samson, it was not really to just stop living. They were kind of dead already.  So that is some similarities there. Now turn to Matthew chapter 27. So we see some saved people in the Bible. And I use those examples because those are specific examples in 1 Samuel chapter 28. The Bible does specifically say, as Samuel tells Saul, he's like, you will be with me in verse 19. You and your sons, basically, he says, will be with me tomorrow. He basically tells Saul that he's going to be in heaven the very next day. So we know Saul's in heaven. We know Saul was saved as a young man. And we know Samson is definitely in heaven. I'll show you that in a few minutes. Look at Matthew chapter 27. Let's look at an example of somebody who's unsaved that has also committed suicide in the Bible. This is, of course, the story of Judas. Look at Matthew chapter 27. Look at verse number three. The Bible says in verse number three, then 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. Now, we have to understand here. First of all, Judas was not saved. It's very clear in the Bible that Judas was not saved, and he didn't get saved. Now, people that just take the word repent and just run 1,000 miles with it, they'll use this verse to say, oh, Judas got saved here. No, Judas repented himself, meaning he just changed his mind about selling out Jesus. He felt bad about selling out Jesus, and he brought the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. He didn't all of a sudden believe on Jesus. He just felt like he shouldn't have taken this money to get him turned in as he's watching this person being beaten and tortured. Look at verse four. So repent, again, it just means to change your mind. God repented in the Bible many, many times. Repent means change your mind. It doesn't mean you're automatically saved. Repent and be baptized means change your mind from unbelief to belief, and then after you're saved, be baptized. It's very simple. Look at verse 15, or verse five. He cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. Go to Matthew 26, just one verse back in verse number 24. Verse number 24. See, how do you know that he didn't get saved? Here's why I know right here. Matthew 26 in verse number 24. How do you know that right before he hanged himself, he didn't just get saved? Because Jesus said so, that's how. Look at verse 24 of Matthew chapter 26. Judas, it's crazy, but Judas is a person that people that believe you can lose your salvation will use as an example. They'll say, oh, you know, some people think that he was saved and then he lost his salvation. Some people think that he wasn't saved and then he got saved. Look, Judas was never saved. And the Bible is super clear on that. It's one of those things where I'm just like, how could people be confused about this? All right, look at verse 24 of Matthew chapter 26. Verse 24 of Matthew 26.  Who's he talking about? He's talking about the man that betrays him. He's talking about Judas. So Judas was an unsaved man who was unsaved due to his own sin, his own unrepentant heart, his own hard heart, but he was actually fulfilling prophecy. He was used to fulfill prophecy. Now look what Jesus says. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Now, could you say that about anybody that is saved? Could you say that about anybody that is saved? Look, because look, if somebody lives a bad life, their whole life, a wicked life, their whole life does not do anything good and get saved at the last moment and ends up in heaven for eternity, could you say it's better that they were not born? You couldn't say that. It's only better. Look, now, if somebody dies unbelieving and ends up in hell for eternity in eternal torments, it's definitely better for that person if they were never even born, if they were never even in existence, if they never came to this earth because they're in eternal torment. Jesus here is saying is that Judas is going to go to hell. Is what he's saying in verse number 24. Look at verse 25. It says, then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, master, is it I? And he said unto him, thou hast said. So he identifies Judas right there. In John 17, 12, I'll just read it for you. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gave us me I kept and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, talking about Judas, the son of perdition, the son of damnation. Judas was never saved and he never got saved. All right, that scripture might be fulfilled. All right, so look, there's many other cases. So we see saved people committed suicide. We see unsaved people committed suicide. There's many other instances in the Bible. If you remember Gideon's son, Abimelech, he also killed himself. That's a similar situation.  And Abimelech was a wicked person. Zimri killed himself in the Bible. Wicked king, God judged him in 1 Kings chapter 16. You know, similar to Judas there. Ahithophel, David's counselor killed himself. I'll talk a little bit more about Ahithophel, but of course, Ahithophel was David's counselor. He sided with Absalom. He's the one that gave Absalom the advice to go in onto David's concubines on the roof of the house. And then when Ahithophel's counsel was dismissed and instead Absalom went with Hushai, David's friend, kind of David's spy that he sent in, Ahithophel was so, he was so disappointed he went and he killed himself. Okay, so we see different people in the Bible commit suicide. So it's something that happens, okay? But look, what we see in the Bible, it's people that are in bad situations. It's people that are in bad situations. Most of the time in the Bible that we saw, it's because of sin that was their own doing we saw here. But I'll talk about this in a little bit too, but people could be very depressed and be in a bad place from sin that other people have committed on them as well. Okay, so we don't wanna dismiss that one. I'll talk about that one in just a few minutes. But the point is suicide and this, I just, the main point I wanna get at so far as suicide exists in the Bible and it's gonna exist in this world amongst the saved and amongst the unsaved. That's the old point I want you to remember so far. Okay, so now suicide. The first question we need to ask ourselves as Bible-believing Christians, is it wrong? Is it wrong to do? Is it a sin? We see that sin gets us there, either sin that we've gotten ourselves into or sin someone, it could be a sin someone committed against us that drove us into a depressive state or something like this. Sin gets us there, but is it wrong to take your own life? Turn to Psalm 31, verse number 15. Let's look at what the Bible teaches about just the act of suicide itself. It does the Bible say that it's wrong. Does the Bible say that it is a sin? Look at Psalm 31 and look at verse number 15. Psalm 31 in verse number 15. The Bible says, my times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from them that persecute me. So the first part of that verse says my times, the Psalmist here is saying my times meaning my life is in your hands. He's talking about how his life is in God's hand. Time, look, notice how he says thy. Again, the th versus the wise here. He's talking to God. He's talking to an individual. He's talking to God.  That is not something that's in my hands. And I've preached on time many times before and I even did a whole sermon on time. Time is not something we are ever going to be able to control. Time in the Bible is clearly taught as something that God uses to motivate us. God says, you don't have much time. God compares the time of our physical lives on this earth as a cup of water being poured out on the ground. And it's like, oh, that's it. And you can't put that cup as we pour it out. We can't put it back in the cup. We're not gonna be able to travel back in time. We're not gonna be able to redo things that we did in our lives. Our time, look, and it doesn't matter how old you are today. Nobody knows if you have another 10 minutes, another 10 years, or another 50 years, I'm left in your life. Nobody knows that. No individual person knows how long they have left on this earth because our time, our lives, the time, the years, the seconds, the minutes are in God's hands only. We are not to take those things into our hand. Now, if I would go and I would end my life, I would be taking that time that is God's into my hands. And that is not what the Bible says. Turn to Job chapter one in verse number 21. Job chapter one in verse number 21. Job chapter one, verse number 21. Now, somebody may not believe in the Bible, it may not believe in God, but this is what the Bible says, all right? The Bible's very clear about this. Look at Job in Job chapter one. Job in Job chapter one is having the hardest day that anyone has ever had, all right? Look what he says in verse number 21. Job says, and naked, and said, naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither, the Lord. And this is the point I wanna get at right here. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So, Job here is acknowledging that everything that he had, including the lives of his children, including everything that he's ever given, was a gift from God, and it's only God that can take those things away, and God, and Job, acknowledges God's right to do that. He acknowledges God's right to take life. Because why? Because God is the only one that gave life.  We see that in the example, really, of Saul.  God really said, yes, Saul ended it himself in the last few minutes, but God really decided that your life, Saul, will end tomorrow. Your time, Saul, will end tomorrow. Look, as a saved individual, we should never forget this. We should never forget that God can chastise us in our physical lives. He'll never take away our salvation, but up until the point of actually shortening your time on this earth. If you're not in obedience to him. This is what we see with King Saul. King Saul is such a valuable lesson in the Bible for the believer. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 19. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 19. So basically, in Job chapter one, Job is acknowledging that it is God that gave the gift of life, and it is God that can take away the gift of life. I picture this the same as like abortion. You know, I've always kind of thought of abortion as like taking God's gift and sending it back unopened.  That is not, that is not your right to do. You say, but in the case of suicide, you say, but it's my life.  That, you know, it's not a baby or it's not another person. Well, look at 1 Corinthians chapter 19. Is it your life? Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 19 and verse number 19. 1 Corinthians chapter 19, look at verse number 19. The Bible says what? Know ye not that your body, your body, is the temple of the Holy Ghost. And yes, I get that we're talking about saved people, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own. So I understand that we are talking about the only person's body that is the temple of the Holy Ghost is someone that is saved. I get that. Look at verse 20. For ye are bought with the price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God. So the primary application of this verse is for people that are saved. But God is literally saying here, you are bought with a price. But here's the thing, Christ, which, how many people in the world did Jesus die for? Jesus died for everyone in the world. It says whosoever, you know, in the Bible, the price was paid. The price that Jesus paid bought the whole store. Think about it that way. He bought the whole store. The fact that some people leave theirs on the shelf is not God's problem. But the point is Christ paid for it all. He paid for all the sins of the world. Some people would just leave that gift up on the shelf in that store. Think about it that way. But look, suicide is the ultimate form of this. It is the ultimate form of just, you know, not acknowledging that your life came from God, not acknowledging that your salvation was paid for, not acknowledging anything and just taking it away. All right? So yes, suicide, the act of suicide is a sin clearly in the Bible. All right? Now let me take it a little bit further here. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter three. Here's another question that people will ask. And this is a question that I was taught wrong on just about my whole life. But the question is this. Does suicide condemn someone to hell? Does suicide condemn someone to hell? And I was surprised when I went and I looked up the beliefs on this from the Catholic Church and the Lutheran and many Protestant churches because let me tell you something. This was unequivocally a yes when I was growing up.  That's it. And I'll explain to you why that is, but I looked at the actual beliefs now and it's funny because everyone's changing their beliefs now. They're actually not changing their beliefs but they're trying to make it sound lighter and make it sound, make what they believe sound more palatable to people. Let me just read you the Lutheran take on someone that commits suicide. When I was growing up, because look, everybody knew somebody that committed suicide. When I was growing up, there was people in the small town that we lived outside of that committed suicide. There was suicide was just something that you just heard of, it just happened. And I'm sure it happens today. But look at what the Lutheran Church says today. Before consenting, this is advice to a Lutheran pastor. Before consenting to officiate at the funeral of a suicide victim, a pastor will want to make full inquiry, not so much for a reason to avoid the question of officiating as to find a reason, then it says in parentheses, even if weak, a weak reason, to accept the opportunity. Especially important in such situations is the state of mind of the deceased and whether the deceased was aware of what he or she was doing. So what, the Lutheran Church has kind of taken the same tack as the Catholic Church on that, well, if God has like a clause for insanity or something like this. I mean, this is what they're saying. Like if they will just say, oh, they weren't in their right mind, so they're in heaven. But what they truly believe is the Catholic belief where the Catholic belief says this, objectively, suicide is a mortal sin. Here, though, we must remember that for a sin to be mortal and cost someone salvation, the objective action, in this case, suicide, must be grave and serious. The person must have an informed intellect, meaning know that it is wrong, and the person must give full consent of the will and tend to commit this action. So they must be in their right mind.    And Lutherans and Catholics, they still believe this. Guaranteed, guaranteed. This was a common thing. People would actually say that in church when they heard about someone committing suicide.  Because that's what the church teaches. And only explain to you why they teach that. Why they teach that. Here's why they teach that. Because it's this etch-a-sketch theology.  In the Lutheran church, you confess your sins, you chant that paragraph as a church. In the Catholic church, you confess your sins to a priest, and you wipe the slate clean. And then you're good until you sin again. But this is the theology. And here's the thing with suicide, that you could never confess that sin, because you're dead.  They're basically taking 1 John 1-9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, they apply that to salvation. The Lutheran church, the Catholic church, they apply that to salvation. And if you apply that verse to salvation, that's where you get your etch-a-sketch theology. Now think about this. This is the problem I had as a Lutheran. I'm sitting there, and I'm wiping the slate clean every Sunday morning, and I'm just like, oh man, how long until I have a foolish thought? And I'm done again. I don't know, 12 minutes? How long?  Like, no one would get to heaven with that theology. Nobody, all right? But thank God, it's not of works. Thank God that we don't have to look. You should confess your sins. 1 John 1-9 is as true as any other verse in the Bible. It's about having a good relationship with your Heavenly Father. It's about being right with God.  Nothing to do with salvation, all right?  But what does the Bible say? Turn to John 3-36. Turn to John 3-36, my favorite soul winning verse right here. John 3-36, what causes a man to go to hell? What causes, is it about sin? Is it about what causes a man to go to hell and another man to not go to hell? What is the difference between those two men? Look at John 3-36. The Bible says he that believed on the Son, half everlasting life. But he that believed not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him. Where's suicide there? Where's suicide there? It has nothing to do with salvation. The difference between someone that goes to heaven is they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. The difference between somebody that goes to hell is they haven't believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you trusted in Jesus or not? It has nothing to do with suicide and that's why I pointed out that there's many stories in the Bible that saved people committed suicide. And look, while they should not have done that, they're in heaven, all right?  Turn to Hebrews 11. Turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, Samson is mentioned in the hall of fame of faith. In the hall of fame of faith, look, he made many mistakes in his life. Samson would have done many greater things in his life than he did with his life that he had. But look, he's in heaven. He's in heaven. Look at verse 32 of Hebrews 11. That literally called the faith chapter in the Bible by most people that are familiar with the Bible. Look at verse 32. What shall I more say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah and David also. Jephthah also made mistakes. And Samuel and of the prophets, who through what? Talking about all these men, Samson being one of them. Who through faith? Subdued kingdoms. Whether or not Samson in heaven has nothing to do with why Samson's in heaven has nothing to do with whether or not he committed suicide. It has to do with whether or not he believed God, he had faith, which he did. So Samson is in heaven. Samson is maybe the greatest, one of the greatest proofs in the Bible of just a person that's just a proof against workspace salvation. Just because, including suicide. Including suicide. So salvation has to do with believe on Jesus or not. That's it. Suicide has nothing to do with it. Or any other sin. So, I mean, what is the situation with suicide in the United States, in the world, in the US, here's the statistics for you. There's about 48,000 suicides, people that take their own lives per year. This was interesting, I guess it wasn't that surprising, but four times as many men commit suicide as women. It's much more common amongst men. And here's another one, and this shouldn't surprise you. And it definitely didn't surprise me, but from 1999 to 2019, there was a 33% increase in suicides. So, just let me just give you a, for somebody who looks up a lot of statistics on society and things like that for sermons, nothing's getting better. I can't think of a single statistic in the United States that is getting better. As a matter of fact, all I see when I look up statistics on bad things happening, all I see are all time highs. All I see are all time highs of fornication, all time highs of people not getting married, all time highs of whatever kind of sin, all time highs of disease, all time highs of just everything. All time highs, and guess what? You know what else is at all time highs? People's knowledge of the Bible. All time lows, people that believe in the Bible.  Hello? And again, suicide is just one more thing on top of this. One more thing on top of this. So, what's the answer? What's the answer? So, what's the answer if I know somebody or have heard of somebody or if I ever meet somebody that is considering suicide, that is struggling with depression? I'm gonna give you a three-step plan for helping somebody that you would run into that would be struggling with this type of, basically extreme depression to the point where you no longer wanna live anymore. It's hard to imagine that despair, but look, it's a very serious thing. 50,000 people a year nearly will commit suicide. And I think that the attempts, the attempts, people that try to kill themselves that fail were way off the charts, like maybe five or 10 times higher than the people that actually do kill themselves. So, it's something that's a real thing. It's a real thing that a lot of people struggle with. And look, I'm sure if I would ask every, any person in this church, you've all heard of somebody who committed suicide. I mean, I can remember several cases myself that I've just heard of or people that we knew that lived in the area close to us or whatever that someone in their family committed suicide. So, it's a very real thing that society is struggling with and that it's getting worse as with everything else. So, I'm gonna give you a three-step plan, all right? The first one is this. If you find somebody that is struggling with these types of thoughts, or struggling with these types of thoughts, the first step is this, okay? The first step is this. The first step that I would offer to this person is this. It's the gospel. That is the first step. Because here's the thing. You say, well, this person, they don't believe in God or they didn't grow up in church and they don't know who Jesus is. But what I would say to that person is if you're at the point of ending your life on this earth, why not give Christ a chance? I mean, why not consider that the way that you, you're like, I'm at the end of my rope. I burned all bridges. Why not try something that you never thought was possible? Why not consider that maybe your thoughts, how you were raised, was not the correct way? Why not give the Bible, the gospel a chance? See, the problem is, the problem with psychology today. You know, the problem with psychology today is, look, depression is a real thing. I'm not saying that depression is not real. Many people suffer from depression, but here, instead of focusing on what the Bible would call sin and what the Bible would call problems that should be gotten correct, you know, I mean, just think about feminism for an example. You know, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter six. Just think about just feminism as a perfect example of this. You know, everything that you could do in your life is not okay. That's what the Bible says. Everything, every direction that you could go in your life is not as good as any other direction. But that's what's being taught today. What's being taught today is, whatever you feel is correct. But look, there's many ways that are not correct. There's many ways that are gonna lead you to despair and to destruction. You know, feminism is a perfect example of this.  But the Bible says it will. The Bible says that this will lead to depression. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter six and verse 18. This is just one example. The Bible says, flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he had committed fornication. Sineth against his own body. Literally, you know, we have philosophies today teaching young ladies and young men to just go abuse yourself.   It's crazy. They totally dismiss what the Bible would call sin. So people can end up in situations where they're depressed because of things that they're literally doing to themselves and modern medicine will just give them a pill. Here, take a pill and you'll feel better. And you know what the side effects of those pills are? Suicide.  If you go look at all these antidepressant pills and go look at the side effects, it will literally say suicide. So they give you this pill to, they don't address anything in your life. The Bible address your life. The Bible fix your life. And this is the myth today, folks. When you dismiss the Bible, you dismiss everything that's true. Think about this. Think about this. Maybe it's not sin in your life. Maybe there was some traumatic abuse that someone sinned against you. You know, I think about this. I think about Tamar in the Bible. I think about Tamar who was, she was assaulted. She was physically assaulted by her brother.  She did nothing wrong. She did nothing wrong, but she was just under all this shame. So in step one, I'm asking people that would be considering suicide, consider the Bible. Consider what God says. Consider the gospel. So what's the answer for someone who has had someone abuse them or like there was maybe molested as a child or something which is so common, it's ridiculous. It's crazy. You must watch your kids. You must not trust anyone with your children. And guess what? It's always people they knew. It's always family members. It's always this. You know what?  And you be careful that this doesn't happen to you. So what do you say to somebody though that has said someone, do some unnatural thing or some unnatural sin to them? What do you say to that person? Turn to Romans chapter 12. This is why you need faith. This is why you need to start with the gospel. This is why you need to start by trusting on Jesus as step one. Because Jesus is the word. Once you trust on Jesus, you can trust every word in this book. And you say someone has done something bad to me when I was, you know, first of all, that's not your fault. That's their fault. That's not on you. But yes, but it causes me shame, you say. It causes me shame. It causes me depression. This is why you need faith. Look at Romans chapter 12 and verse number 19. This is why you need Jesus right here.  Look at verse number 19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves.  Jesus is saying, don't worry about it. Why? Why should I not worry about that? But rather give place under wrath. He's like, look. He's like, just put your wrath over here on me. That's what he's saying. He's not saying, hey, forgive those people. This is why the proper doctrine is so important. You'll have churches today that have somebody that's molested children and sitting in their churches saying we need to forgive him. That's not what the Bible says. God doesn't say, when I hate wicked people to forgive those wicked people. No, God says give place under wrath. God says, I will take care of it. This is why you need faith. And look what the Bible says here. It says, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, sayeth the Lord. That's why you need faith. That last verse right there. God says, I will repay. I will take care of it. And you're like, well, how could I think about it? I listened to, I was watching this, kind of paying attention to this trial of this, this school shooter that they couldn't even, they couldn't even put this kid to death.  Now, I was listening to this father that got up and spoke his mind to this kid in this courtroom after he was sentenced to life.  But guess what? Guy, what I would say to that father is, God will take care of this. Because somebody that is unnatural, look, this is somebody that is not going to go to heaven. God will take care of it. He's saying, how much better could God take care of it than us? I don't know, how much better is eternity than 10 years? How much longer is eternity? That's how much more God's vengeance is than whatever we could do. So ultimately it doesn't matter if they let that guy go. If they gave him six months probation and let him go because God will take care of him for eternity. Obviously that wouldn't be a good thing for society, I get that, but God will take care of these things. That's why step one needs to be the gospel, needs to be trusting Jesus. Because look, you can trust the words. You can trust that somebody that has gone out and done unnatural things is somebody that God has rejected. That's how they got that way in the first place.  God will take care of them forever and ever. Nothing we could ever do could even approach that. All right? God's like, Romans chapter 12 and other places. God's like, I got this. He's like, trust me, I got this. So that's for somebody that has said someone's sin against them, all right? Step one is consider the gospel. Consider the gospel. Why not consider something else? If you were to the point, you say, oh, I don't believe in God. I didn't grow up with the Bible believing in God. If you're to the point where you're ready to throw it all away, why not consider God? Why not consider Christ? Why not see if what I'm saying is true?  Why not explore that statement and see if I'm wrong? Why not? The second one, I mean, look. First of all, look, the Christian life. The Christian life, it may not be easy, but it's very simple. It's very simple. And look, here's another thing. The Christian life has purpose. More on that later. I mean, this is just a note for the saved that would be considering suicide. Just remember this.  Not one. On the contrary, Saul's trouble was actually judgment from God. It was actually chastisement from his heavenly father. All right, so get saved. Do what God wants you to do. Learn the Bible. You know what I mean? You go out. I just met somebody like this yesterday.  They're just like, look, I got all these problems. Why not try the Bible? You're saved now, but if you continue to do the same things, you'll get the same results. Why not try what God says? I mean, God literally says in his word, turn to Luke chapter one. Turn to Luke chapter one. Luke chapter one.  God literally says in Luke chapter one, verse 37, he says, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. Psalm 50 to verse 15 says, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shall glorify me. God says, I can deliver you from anything that you've got yourself into. You say, I don't see how that's possible. Well, that's step one. Step two and three will explain to you how it is possible. All right, step two, first of all, step one is consider the gospel. Consider Jesus Christ. Like, it's not something that I've ever believed before. Consider it. If you're to the end of your line, consider Christ. Step two, make as many things right as you can.  Make as many things right as you can. James five says, now you're saved. James five says, confess your faults one to another. Get as many things right as you possibly can. See, a lot of people will never try to make things right because they don't want to deal with the consequences of what they've done. They don't want to deal with the fact that somebody may not forgive them. They don't want to deal with, you know, facing someone that they've wronged. They don't want to deal with these things.   Ahithophel killed himself over pride. He was a prideful man. The Bible says everybody listened to him. The Bible says, in the chapter before he killed himself, the Bible says that people listened to Ahithophel like he was God, like he was the voice of God. And all of a sudden, the king didn't listen to him one time and he commits suicide. You know why that is? It's pride. Get rid of your, hey, consider humble. Consider being humble. Consider it. Pride hasn't worked for you. Pride, you know, lead it to destruction. Suicide could be one of those ways that pride leads you to destruction. Pride led Ahithophel to his death because he couldn't handle the fact that the king didn't listen to him one time. That's a very prideful person that did that. So get as many things right as you can. Forget your pride. You've tried pride, try humility. Consider that. And here's another one. Now that you're in the Christian life, you're step three. You're step three. Focus on other people. And getting saved is gonna point you in that direction because you know what? Because you know what? The Christian life is all about other people. The Christian life is focused on others. Here's a universal truth for you. Here's a universal truth for you. You say, you know what? I'm in a place, nobody needs me. I'm sure everybody that ends up committing suicide has felt like nobody needs me. Nobody wants me here. Everybody hates me. I've done so many bad things. But guess what? As a Christian, as a Christian, here's a universal truth. People need you as a Christian. Not just your family. You say all my family hates me, but not just your family.  Not just people you know. Everyone, as a Christian, everyone needs you. Jesus says in Matthew 16, go and you know the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He's saying, I have given you this commission to preach the gospel to everyone.  Go to everyone else then. Because everyone needs you. And here's the funny thing. Here's the funny thing that as Christians, as Christians, we're all in this boat. Turn to Matthew chapter nine. Here's the boat that we're all in. Matthew chapter nine. Go to Matthew chapter nine. Look at verse 37. So the first thing is consider Christ. The second thing is get as many things right as you possibly can. You're like, I burned them all. The bridges, they're gone. Fine. Go to step three. Step three is focus on others. That is the Christian life focusing on others. Look at Matthew chapter nine, verse 37. Then say if he unto his disciples, Jesus, the harvest truly is plenious, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore that the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Guess what? Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. We will leave wheat on the ground. There's not enough people to pick up all the wheat. The wheat are souls.  Because there's not enough people to pick up all the wheat. What's that mean? There's not enough people to go out and preach the gospel. That's what Jesus is saying. It is just a matter. Look, that's the current situation report, folks, is that there's not enough people already to pick up all the wheat. We'll leave it on the ground. We're gonna leave wheat on the ground. But guess what? Everyone, that means there's opportunity galore is what that means. It means that everyone literally needs you as a Christian. I mean this mission trip, you think about this. Think about this mission trip that all these people that we know are on. They're literally, these guys that are going out on this trip, they have a, think about this for a second. They have a skill. They have a skill that everyone everywhere needs. That has value all over the world. Think about the fact that you could have a skill as a Christian that is needed by 99.9% of the world. That's pretty amazing. Where did all those guys learn that skill? You ever ask yourself that? I mean, look, it begins here. It begins here. Every week is a mission trip here. Every week is a mission trip. I mean, look, as a Christian, as a Christian, you are needed. So somebody that's considering like ending their life is like, hey, get saved. Get saved. Get in church. Come be a missionary with us. Why? Because people need you. That's why, because people's eternity depends on you. Why not consider it? Why not consider that? So look, those are the three things that I wanted to point out, but see what's that kind of a hard thing to think about, especially if you've known somebody personally or close to you that's gone through it. But the Bible just points out it's just a sin. It happens to be a very selfish sin. It's a very selfish sin. The damage to others is profound that people leave behind.  A common story.  And most of the time, I was never really close to any of the situations, but most of the time it was financial trouble. But I just remember thinking in the last one, there was one that was just a couple of years before we moved, just a couple of years before 2016. And this farmer in the area committed suicide and he had a wife and several children and all the neighbors came together and helped harvest and help do all these things.  You know, you got, yeah, financial trouble, but the financial trouble didn't go away.  And I mean, I can't imagine the damage for generations going forward.  You're like, I don't know, I thought I'd be rich by the time I was 55 and I lost everything yesterday. Well, why not put your focus somewhere else for the last 30 years? Why not try it? You know, that's why salvation is so valuable as step one because God has all the answers. And the Christian life, the Christian life, as I said, is entirely focused on others. It's entirely focused on other people. I mean, it's a tough thing to discuss which is maybe why, you know, I haven't preached on it before. It's not something I think about a lot and it's just, it's not something that's easy to talk about. But basically, the Bible just says it's a sin, many times resulting from sin, either personal sin or a sin someone else committed against someone. But God will take care of that, as I showed you, that takes faith. But it has, you know, it has nothing to do with salvation. You know, as the main point that the Bible points out is that's the big difference that I see in what people actually believe out there versus what the Bible says is that suicide has nothing to do with salvation. You could have a saved person that was just, that just got themselves into despair, got themselves into hard times, into hard trouble and thought they couldn't get out of it. But you know, this idea, by the way, of focusing on others, this is something secular science has figured out too. Now I love when secular science catches up with the Bible. Secular science, there's so many studies out there that tell people that they just have done all these studies and show that the happiest people are the people that do things for other people. You know that, it's like built in. Like when you go out and you help other people, it just, it gives you joy. When you go out and I don't, whatever people do, charity and all these things, they've done all these studies and they just like, they're so shocked. Right, they're so shocked. It's amazing, but somebody that spends their money on other people instead of spending it all on themselves, they're happier than someone that just spends it all on themselves. It's like, you're like, yeah, but that's what the Bible says. That's why the Christian life is, it's not easy at times. There's gonna be tribulation at times. People may persecute you at times, but there's real joy. There's real joy in focusing on other people and focusing on other people and passing them using God's word from death to life. I mean, that's joyous every time that I see it happen. And it comes with the territory. So look, I mean, if you ever, if you know somebody that is struggling with this, reach out, reach out to our church or you're struggling with this, reach out to our church or a church like ours in your area that believes the Bible. But consider, you know, consider the Bible is basically the answer here. Consider the Christian life. Consider Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ was despised. He was despised. He was rejected. You know, he went through that. He went through being on this earth loved by hardly anyone. They murdered him. You know, consider him is the answer. Let's bow our heads and have a word.


Hey everybody, welcome back to Retro Tech. Today is our two-year anniversary special where we're going to celebrate year two of Retro Tech. We're going to go back and we'll look at some of the things that were some of my more important and favorite repairs over the last year. And then I'm going to also show you some brand new footage that you've never seen before when it pertains to things like what happened to the Sony PVM 20L5. Well, if you stick around to the end of this episode, you'll be able to find out what happened to it. And also, I'm going to give you a never-before-seen tour of my lovely, wonderful shop here. I'm going to go around and show you a lot of the CRTs that I have here in the shop. I'll talk about things like the D24s and the lovely Sony PVM 2950Q. What's going to happen to them? Well, you'll find out towards the middle of the video. But first, I want to, again, go jump back in and take a look at some of my favorite repairs from this last year. And one of my favorite most underrated monitors, that's the Sony PVM 1353MD. All right. So first things first, the 53MD is very desirable because not only is it a 600 line TV monitor, but it's pretty easy to service. It's one of the more simple designs for the PVM before they got really complicated in the late 90s and early 2000s. And the good thing about this one is you're going to get a lot of the great features that Sony added, such as a service menu. And this particular model does have a second input on it that can be switched between component and RGB. There is an output on those lines. So you can daisy chain other monitors in and out of this one quite easily. And lastly, the 53MD will generally be sold for a considerably less amount of money than the M2 or the M2MD use or even the L2s, which are all going to be great monitors. But you're getting the same kind of performance out of a properly adjusted 53MD unit. This is a perfect starter monitor for anybody that's trying to get into PVMs. All right, the next monitor I want to feature is the Sony BVM D14H5U that I rebuilt about six to eight months ago. Now, first, I want to say thank you to Urien. Urien actually donated this monitor to me. And when I got it, it didn't really work well at all. The tube was completely used up. So I was able to find another tube and get some good experience with swapping a tube out on a BVM. So thank you, Urien. It was one of my favorite projects this year. I also was able to go through and rebuild the entire chassis for the most part, as well as some of the other minor boards and then give it a good calibration and cleaning. So if you haven't checked that one out, go back and give it a watch. Now, before I get to my tour of my lab, I want to show you one of my favorite tools I found this year. And that was this Klein convergence gauge. So this gauge doesn't actually perform any maintenance itself. What it does is it allows you to track and check any convergence that you want to on your CRT. I bought this one, you know, six to eight months ago for under $100. But I do believe the price has really jumped up on them lately. Now, to do this properly, you want to have a nice line horizontal line pattern across your screen, something that you can easily find in a 240p test suite. Take the lens and put it up to the lines. And it actually isolates the colors. For example, whites can be broken down to blue, green, and red on the lens. And then you could use the adjustment readers on the side and lift the colors such as the red, you could be lifted by using the right hand side. And the blue can be lifted by using the left hand side. And it's just a great all around tool to make any kind of adjustment on your vertical convergence. And also check and see how in spec your monitor is. Hey everybody, welcome back today to a special behind the scenes look at the retro tech studio slash lab. And honestly, it's really just my two car garage in my suburban home. But I thought we'd do a little fun thing here to celebrate kind of the two year anniversary of the channel retro tech. And I just show you kind of around how my shop and everything is set up. Now it's kind of a mess right now. But I wanted to show you some of the items that I've gotten in recently that will eventually be restored hopefully in the next year or year three for retro tech. So you know, this is just a rack that sits behind my a lot of times when I'm shooting and doing some work at some supplies and tools and old games. And this is something that you might have seen in some videos, which is newer Neo Geo MVS CMVS Consolized MVS. So I've not really done a direct video on that thing, but it's a lot of fun. And one of the newer things I've picked up, there's an old Apple computer. I've got a lot of these eight inch monitors in which I've not discussed in a while. These are both this one just does composite in this video, this one's a composite only model. And then over on the other side of the room, I'll show you some more. So coming up, you know, next year, we'll try to get some very good information on the eight inch monitors and kind of the difference between all of them. And then scrolling back here, a lot of people will ask about this is this is the JVC D series, which hopefully will be able to I'm waiting for my modern friend and I do kind of connect and be able to work a little bit together because I wanted him to come out and help me on the D series RGB mod, just so that we both could get a little bit better. He's got some good ideas and I want to involve him in it. This big contraption in front of it isn't actually an old school light for it was from a medical recycling company where I got PVMs from before and I pretty much asked him if he'd throw in this old X-ray light. So it's really cool. You can actually stick papers up in it. If you have a plan, the connection just sits, it holds the papers up like that and you can see real nice. And if you have schematics, you could see through it. And it also provides some good lighting for shots. Occasionally you might see it in the background, but that's that light. And then let's just scroll around here to the other sides of this garage. And so we've got now some of the bigger, more amazing monitors that we'll be covering this year. This is one of my favorite all-time PVMs and that is the Sony 2950Q. Now this one is not mine unfortunately. It belongs to someone who brought it here and there's a pretty interesting story about where it came from, where it's been, and it needs, it works great, but it still needs adjustment and a recap and all that good stuff. So we'll be able to get in there and do that this year on this magnificent Grail level PVM. So that's one of them. And then obviously in the background behind that we've got some other high-end monitors, which I've not gotten to yet. We'll talk about in a second. Now this is an interesting thing here. I bought this off an auction from my local government surplus website, and it was an old convention services table and booth set up with wheels. And this originally would have cost thousands of dollars. It's actually that piece and then the piece that the 2950 is on. It's really high quality made. So I got this for like $10 for the set on auction because they were just wanting to get rid of it. They're very helpful. That pretty much is a good transition over here to the multi-format section of the BVMs here. And well, this first one's just a 14L5, which you've already seen. You guys have definitely seen videos on this one. This is the D-Series 14H5U, which has been completely rebuilt for the most part. Different tube, everything else in it. I've not really shown this one off much. This is an A-Series with very low hours, and I do have two of the three cards for it, not the 61D. I don't have that composite and this video card, but I do have the 68X in here, so I can show you the RGB on there. And the last little old monitor down here, swing around. This one is actually a Commodore monitor, a 1701 from the very early 80s. And I've not worked on it yet, but it needs to get, see that, how the tube's loose. Tube works, everything looks good on it. There's no burn, and there's no, you know, none of the guns on the CRT are out, but it needs to be recapped, calibrated, and then needs to have that bezel fixed, where I can just get the tube stuck, because that's what's happened is the bezels cracked on the inside. And this little guy actually belongs to TRY from my life in gaming, and so I'm fixing that one for him. And that should be a fun project because I've not had any videos on a Commodore monitor. Now this is kind of the back stock parts area for now. There are a couple of leftover, well what's leftover of the parts monitors from the 2030s. Now I've got some more stuff down there, more eight inch stuff that's just really not working right and needs repairs. There's an extra tube that is good for a 14 inch PVM 600 line tube. And this is about the only flat screen monitor I have in here, this LCD Samsung that came out of an airport. And I've never done anything, any videos I don't think on it, but maybe something will come on that because it's kind of an interesting piece. The big guy here in the middle, this is one of the Sony D24s that I recently picked up, another amazing monitor. Now I was able to secure three of them, and one of them works perfectly, but the other two have some very severe issues. This is one with some issues, it will overload when it's running after a little bit, especially if you use, for some reason it won't overload on 240p, but if you use 480i or 480p or any resolution higher than 240p, the monitor will overload after a couple of minutes. So I'm assuming that that needs some cab replacement. And then the other two, as I swing around here, ones in the flight case, that's the one that works perfectly. And then this one has higher hours, it's like 68,000 hours, and there are some issues, I've been doing a lot of testing with it. Specifically right now I've got Xbox running through component in it, and I'll flip it on here for a minute and show you, it's probably not going to do the problem, but after a while the screen will start flashing, which makes me wonder if this is a tube problem, more than likely, but if I just click that remote on, eventually this will turn on. So look for a lot, obviously I'm going to rebuild pretty much every one of these D24s to see if we can make them at least two of them working, and again this one I'm just not too sure about. So anyway, that's just a quick shot of this D24, and I've got just Morrowind running here in the background, obviously. But this is just this amazing CRT for anything that's higher, higher range over 240p. I can't believe how good it looks for like regular Xbox, Xbox 360 and things like that. So definitely we will be doing a lot more content on that monitor. And then let's just shoot around here, this is just some consoles that I use a lot to test. It's a little bit of a mess in here right now, and then down there is a packed up, fully restored Sony PVM 2030 that was done a few months ago and just waiting to be picked up. Here we've got the Neo Geo MVS 4 slot cab that does work and works great. The only thing is it just needs some body work done to it. I've got all the kits for that, just haven't had the time really to dedicate to get that ripped apart and done. And then over here finally we've got the old Samsung CRT that I rebuilt and did an RGB mod. More 8-inch monitors. More 8-inch monitors. Those are actually the better ones that do RGB component everything. Parts. Here's an Olympus 203 that's just another scrap monitor. The tube's no good in it. A lot of the boards have problems, so it's kind of just a parts monitor. Same thing with this one under here unfortunately. The outside's in pretty good shape, but it's a 14L2 or 20L2 with a bad board in it. The tube's good and everything else. The main chassis is not good. And then this is just a rack of Xbox disc games mostly. And let's see here if there's anything else. There is one more interesting thing back there. That's actually a PVM cart for scopes, but it's perfect. It used to have a 14-inch on top of it. Now the 14-inch is down here, which is another monitor I forgot to mention. It's hidden back there.  And it can go on that cart. And then that 14-inch monitor also can go inside this travel box. This one does not have a monitor in it, but these boxes are great for when you need to move around some of these big heavy monitors sometimes. So the last, maybe two I can mention over here. Let's see. I've got some stuff down on the floor. And controller. This is another D-Series 14 that needs to be rebuilt. It won't turn on. Same thing with this one. It's an F-Series that needs to be recapped because it won't turn on. And those are both cap issues I know for sure. One of the things I was very happy to get off my list of things to do for this year was the restoration of the Sony PVM-20L5. I was able to show you how to take the thing apart and do pretty much every kind of preventative maintenance that you may need. It's like recapping and things. This PVM is highly adjustable. I was glad to be able to go through and navigate many of the service menus in this one because it is slightly different than the earlier models on the M-Series. It's more compatible or comparable to things like the D-Series on the Sony BVM line. But again, just a really high quality monitor with a lot of geometry controls so you can really hone in on a very perfect looking screen. Now I did explain to you earlier that this monitor has finally left my shop. This was back in February. I wanted to show you where it ultimately ended up and that's here at Matt's lab. And Matt is the founder and president of Insurrection Industries and he purchased the 20L5 from me again back in February and I was able to deliver it to him. We had the opportunity to put it side by side and test it against tries from my life in gaming. He had his 20L5 and he brought it down and we shot some footage of the monitor side by side just getting some testing done. So that's ultimately where it ended up and Matt and his team make some incredible products for the retro gaming community and you could be well assured that all his products are prototyped and tested on some of the best CRT monitors in the world. All right, so there you have it. The first two years of retro tech in the books and the last thing I really want to say is just a heartfelt thank you. Thank you very much for watching this channel, for thumbs-uping or even thumbs-downing videos, for being subscribed to the channel, for even sharing a video and especially anybody who's gone and done extra to support the channel. Whether that's being a member of Patreon or even people that have donated items and helped me find some of these different and rare CRTs, I sincerely appreciate it and you are a big part of why things have kind of blossomed in this little niche community of retro gamers as well as people from the art industry and other creative, influential people that are really into the wonderful format that is analog video and CRTs. So what I can promise you is that as long as I am able for this next year, we're going to continue to press on hard. I'm going to regularly be bringing you more new content on the monitors you saw in the shop right now as well as other CRTs that I have on my hunt list and just let me know if there's anything that you think would be special enough to make a retro tech episode about and I just may do it. Thanks again. If you do have any questions on how you can either help the channel out or if you have a question about a CRT, at this point pretty much all those things are funneled through Patreon so please check out the link below listed and guys I will see you real soon with some more retro content.