25th March 2025

25th March 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 20v13)


Message (Scott Woodburn)


If there is a commandment more famous than the others it is perhaps the sixth which simply states that we should not kill. Several years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the Down Recorder in response to an article which called for the introduction of assisted suicide. The debate has since moved on and sadly our nation continues it’s march to godlessness but I remain utterly convinced that it is not within our remit to take life - in the womb, in the midst of granda’s suffering or by our own carelessness. You may disagree and I suspect some will passionately believe me to be wrong but I continue to hold my position and I believe our land would do well to listen again to the voice of God who says “do not kill”. Here is my article… 


“The first funeral I conducted was on the 1st July 2005 and since then there have been a further 147. I have stood in hospital rooms as families watched their loved one slip away. I have entered homes to see people crippled by disease weep like children. I have talked to others in mental torment because death is near and they have wasted so much time. I have seen death, I have smelt death and I am utterly sick of death.


For a man who is often expected to ‘say a few words’ I have frequently known my limits in the face of death. I haven’t been able to comprehensively answer the age old question ‘Why me?’ I have stood at the graveside of children and felt indescribably incompetent in the midst of such tragedy. I have sat and listened to prolonged anguished weeping and responded like an inadequate little boy. What can be done?


It intrigues me that in society there is a tolerable death and one that we increasingly cannot allow. The man who drops dead in his field at a good old age or the ninety year old woman who goes to bed and doesn’t wake up, these are seen as good deaths. If we could choose, we’d all like to go like that. The death that we can’t accept is slow, anguished and full of pain as illness ravages the body. These are awful deaths and we wouldn’t wish them upon our worst enemy. My heart breaks for anyone who has faced such a trial and in light of the experience of so many it is no wonder that a movement exists to introduce ‘assisted dying’ into the public conscience.


What could be more loving and compassionate than to assist someone’s death and to cut short months or even years of agony? I understand such calls. I have heard people beg for death and I have called upon the Lord to bring their suffering to an end. However I cannot accept a movement that now wishes to dictate the ‘when’ and the ‘how’ of death. I am not a perfect man but I am a Christian man and as I consider the clamour for assisted dying I call to mind what my Lord says. He tells us that death is the enemy, that it stings, that all will die but, categorically, we are not to take life.


Assisted suicide might seem like an act of compassion but in the eyes of almighty God it is murder. We may prematurely end someone’s earthly pain but at what cost eternally? I contend that the day for our death is in God’s hands and should remain there. I accept that changes in law can come at a breathless pace, yet the law of God does not change. God’s voice continues to declare as an everlasting binding standard ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and in an age where life is cheap, may the priceless word of God be heard above the voices that call for a new orthodoxy.


You may believe me foolish but nevertheless I am convinced that if we want to hear God speak all we need to do is open the Bible and read. The Bible’s testimony is that sin entered the world through Adam and death along with sin. Therefore because Adam was the first of mankind, humanity has followed him into sin and like Adam we too will die because death is the wages of sin. The human condition seems utterly hopeless and yet there is one who has comprehensively defeated death. His name is Jesus and for the Christian he is our Saviour from sin and hope in the face of death. Jesus was perfect in every way, tempted and tried but without sin. He was God in the flesh and he knew the heartbreak of death as he wept at his friend’s tomb. He is not distant and far off but he is able to sympathise with us in our weakness. When Christ’s life was taken from him at the cross, he willingly endured unspeakable anguish and death as a substitute for his people. Yet today his tomb stands empty, for on the third day he was raised to life. Jesus has paid the price for sin and freed us from wrath, death and hell. Jesus Christ is the death of death.


The Christian answer to the dark clouds of terminal illness is not for humanity to become the arbiters of life and death but instead for all people everywhere to repent of sin and trust in Christ. I fully understand that what I have written may seem like an idle tale and to others perhaps offensive, but I wanted to offer another path in response to growing calls for assisted dying. It is not for us to decide the ‘when’ of someone’s death regardless of the agony of their last days or the inconvenience of their life. Instead as Christians we confess that life is short, death is sure, sin the cause and Christ the cure.”
      
Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q40 What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience, was the moral law.
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