The right to refuse medical treatment: Is it suicide?

Dusty

Inactive
I am not sure of the question but will try to answer.

In the medical field a person has the right to say they do not want
C. P. R. . People of different religions who do not take blood have that right to refuse as well .

If an elderly person refuses to take medical treatment or anything more to prolong their live ... in my estimation , that is not suicide. If they are in their right mind and can make those decisions , then in my mind that is their decision .

Sometimes after having worked in a hospital for 45 yrs , I do understand and have seen extreme cases where people are just kept alive and prolonging their lives even though there is not much else can be done .

My mother refused to eat when she became so ill and did not want any IV's or anything else . I do not think it was suicide . She lived a long life and died very peacefully and I have every assurance that she is with the Lord.
 
Suicide

A preacher that was at a Kenneth Copeland meeting who had a church was in the hallway between services and talking to other ministers. He told them that since his wife left him, that he did not want to live anymore. He was also sad about some other things in his life. He told these ministers that he just wanted it to be over and be with the Lord.

Just then he fell in the hallway in front of all these men laid out and not breathing.

some of the men that knew Brother Copeland ran to get him. After all Kenneth preached faith and healing. Kenneth ran over to pray for the man and the Lord stopped him. The Lord told Kenneth not to pray, but the man wanted to be with him.

Kenneth not knowing what the man said just a few minutes ago told the crowd to leave this man alone, and not pray for him. This man wanted to be with Jesus.

It is not suicide and when we want to pray and beg the people to hang in there and believe on their healing, we have no idea what they go through daily, and the peace they want so bad. They can get to a place where they would rather be with Jesus, and that is their choice. We should respect that.

Jesus Is Lord.
 
depends how you look at it,God decides when you go.i know my grandad kept dying and the doctors kept bringing him back,i thought this was cruel.just prolonged his suffering.
 
Beloved friends, I have faced this situation personally on more than one occasion. I have always prayed and have asked friends to pray that if God has a work for me he will bring me safely through major surgery. What I have told my husband and family is that if I am on life support for any length of time (days rather than hours) they are to turn it off. My personal feeling is that if after surgery or accident my heart will not beat of its own accord then I am to be left to die in peace.

We have to be careful here though, and I think it is wise to make one's feelings known sooner rather than later. I could not imagine the situation of my soul being held in a body kept artificially alive when all of heaven is waiting for me. Then again, I pose the question of when does the soul leave the body.

We are getting into very deep water here, and perhaps it is better to let each one make their decision before the Lord.

May God bless us all as we learn together, and may we continue to live our lives in the sure and certain hope of His return when all these vexed questions will be answered for us and we shall know even as also we are known.
 
Amen Jeanann .... I agree

We are getting into very deep water here, and perhaps it is better to let each one make their decision before the Lord.

This is a personal thing and each one has to make that decision . Myself I have told my family already . I am ready to go and meet my Jesus . Please , I do not want any heroics .I have seen too many people with no quality of life after those things have happened.
 
WoW

Well, this is the opposite of God killing someone early in their life, because he loved them more than we could or saw some evil coming in their life.


Is the question now, do we have a right to go home with the Lord if we have not fulfilled all God would have us do on earth?

I think the Will of the Lord should always come first.

If God sent his word and Healed you, (He did) and by his stripes ye are already healed.

If God has more things for you to do, then It would be best to hang in there and get in faith for What Jesus had done on the cross.

Psa 118:17 I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.


Interesting.

Jesus Is Lord
 
I see your point but when you are 90 yrs old like my mother was ... that presents a different peice of cake .:):)
 
dying is it right to go early?

I see your point but when you are 90 yrs old like my mother was ... that presents a different peice of cake .

Well, at 90 I think if you did not catch God's will by then or did all that you were asked..... It would be ok to want to be with your Lord.

Or if a person is suffering from cancer, and knows that chemo and radiation will only postpone the inevitable by not very long and their quality of life in the meantime is going to be quite poor

Trishcuit

Well thats the thing, I am fully convinced that it is the Will of God for his people to receive Healing. There is no problem bigger than God. I was told my own son was not going to live but a few more days as he did not respond to chemo or anything else they tried. The Cancer spread that fast and his whole body was blue from the blood vessels breaking.
I knew that God would keep his Word and my son would live, I stood strong and did not move. When I got that report only 9 days latter, I still did not move. Let God be true and every man a liar, though I am thankful for all the hard work the doctors did. The day they said he might die, they did a spinal and took more bone marrow from his leg. The could not find one cancer cell. He is fine years latter today.

So..................

1) Some believe Healing is not for today and don't preach it.
you see the results of that in their church.

2) Some believe God can and does heal, only if He feels like it or wants to. (God's will) once again you will see more healing but not so much.

3) Some believe Jesus bought and paid for Healing and we receive it by faith. (Don't side with the sickness, faith just believes the word.)
You see lots of people getting victory over all kinds of stuff in this church.

I know, I have attended all 3 types.

So is a person responsible for knowledge they did not have or was taught?

Do they have a right to want to be with the Lord if the Doctors can not do anything and just prolonged treatment means more suffering?

My thought is that we have to be responsible for what God reveals to us.
If we did not move and act on the message of faith and hope that came to us, and we discounted it as bad doctrine, then we will still have to give an account of those things and not doing, or fulfilling what God had planed for us.

To do God's plan for you life, your going to run into problems and hard things that will take faith. It will take faith to believe for the things God wants you to have as God does not think small. I believe you are responsible to endure the hardships by faith and receive What God wanted to do with your life.

1Co 3:14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.


God bless.

Jesus Is Lord
 
Trishcuit said:
And if the person has not lived what we would call a 'full life', or full of years, then I guess it would come down to if this person would ever recover their consciousness or their body ever function on it's own without life support, same thing.

Or if a person is suffering from cancer, and knows that chemo and radiation will only postpone the inevitable by not very long and their quality of life in the meantime is going to be quite poor...then what? Do they owe it to family to go through the punishing treatments and prolong suffering just so their family can have a few more months with them?

What about Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS? That would be horrible.

I know exactly what you are talking about Trish and sometimes it is not God's will for the person to be healed . We do not have all the answers but we do have God and His power and authority and we cannot question His Supremesy . He know best .
 
That's it Michael . And with God's help we can make the right decision. We need to trust and obey .

Back to the orginal question .

Is it right to refuse medical treatment ? Absolutely . We have the right to make our own decision.
 
God's Will to heal.

sometimes it is not God's will for the person to be healed .

Now we are getting into a whole other thing........

So, how are we to know if it was not God's will? We pray and pray and they don't get healed?

This question has already been asked, and the Lord gave us the answer to the question.

Luk 5:12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.


The man asked if it was the Lord's will to heal him. He knew that the Lord could do anything.

Even today, many prayers start out with "Lord, I know you can do anything, and everything is possible to you. If it be your will Lord, please Heal me."

The Head of our church, The Lord Jesus answered that question.

Luk 5:13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.

I don't see any places in the scripture where Jesus changed or became a respecter of persons. I have read through them many times and am sure I did not miss anything.

Mat 8:16
When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:

Luk 4:40
Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.

Act 10:38
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.


I can find places in the Word where doubt and little faith Jesus called it made it so the person could not receive the best from God. ( I won't post all the scriptures.)

However, all things are possible to those that will believe. (Mark 9:23)

I would need some actual scripture that tells me Jesus changed, Faith in his name no longer works (Gate beautiful) and his will on Healing changed.

Could this be a faith problem and not a will of God issue as we are told to know his will. (He Would not tell us something that we could not do.)

Eph 5:17 Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ASV


Jesus Is Lord.
 
Brother Mike

What I am saying in my estimation is not a faith issue and it is not up to us to say that this one has more faith that that one . We are not to judge.

I have been with young people who have been on fire for the Lord ... the one was stricken with brain cancer and he always kept telling us that God was going to heal him and he truly believed and had faith that He would .

Well I would say the Lord took him home at the age of 22 yrs. He probably told more people about the Lord and did more for the Lord than I have done in my lifetime . I cannot question God's will . There are just some things we will not understand untill we get to heaven so we have to accept them . Now Cyle is whole and is running around in heaven praising God .

I could tell you of other stories too, of young people who were not healed . and they were faith believing wonderful Christians.

There are people who don't get healed and for an example there is Jonnie Erickson Toda who writes books and poems and is an invalid in a wheelchair. Why is Billy Graham suffering with Parkinson's ?


Anyways I am sorry to the OP, Trishcuit for hyjacking this thread and I am finished now as the topic was :

IS IT RIGHT TO REFUSE MEDICAL TREATMENT ?

If you would like to start a thread on healing brother Mike .... please do .
 
Ok.

Well then.

Dusty Posted.

Is it right to refuse medical treatment ? Absolutely . We have the right to make our own decision.

This was someone that was told by the professionals that with our current technology, they are unable to do anything to reverse the condition, giving that person a life that is livable, and can be sustained longer.


I agree that we have the right to make our own choice in the Matter. God is not going to be upset if this is the best knowledge we have at the time spiritually and/or naturally.
 
I am still here.

I am still here Trishcuit.

I think everyone agrees that it would not be called suicide, if someone wanted to go home to the Lord and stop treatment.

To talk about Suicide being an actual sin, or The Lords will on healing and that person standing on healing instead of giving up would have taken this post in all kinds of directions.

Sometimes I wish we could all just be on a phone and get it all sorted out.


Jesus Is Lord.
 
Trishcuit said:
Don't be sorry Dusty, I am just stoked to see a thread get some action and not die out after 3-4 responses.:D

Thanks Trish, but as a rule of thumb we do like to keep the threads on track and to the original poster's topic.
 
Trishcuit said:
We know all about that Dusty, after losing two babies to stillbirth, as yet unexplained. I don't know WHO'S will that was but but we have found peace. I don't blame God because I know we live in a fallen world riddled with sin and the rain falls on the just as well as the unjust. However, I am still looking forward to being in Heaven, meeting my babies and seeing the 'big picture'.
:fish::fish::fish: (I like fish)

Trish .... I too have two babies in heaven that I look forward to seeing one day . Sometimes we have to rest in God and know that He knows best and He has a plan for our life . It is the trust and obey part that is the hardest and all the questions we have that go unanswered. Some day we will know and it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
 
Letting nature take it course? Ok strange but I think that alot of the times they never allow patients to decide their course of life. It's like someone who is limp and wants to not use crutches. Bad I think.
 
Letting nature take it course? Ok strange but I think that alot of the times they never allow patients to decide their course of life. It's like someone who is limp and wants to not use crutches. Bad I think.


That is easy to say if it is an elderly person , Mellow but much harder when it is a young person. Ultimately , if we are able, the decision can be made by us and of course in cases where the person is unconscious the family makes the decision . At least that is the way it is here in our hospital system .
 
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