Today I was off to visit Whitney again, again she was not home. This time a young lady comes out. I have spoken to this lady a couple of times before but not about the truth just about whether Whitneys is home or not. So I decide to talk to her about the truth. I see her more than I see Whitney, so why not.

I ask if she has seen Miss Ann’s or Whitneys book? She says "Yes I’ve seen my mums one but she loves it so much she won’t let her read it." I said "well that’s okay, you can have your own one if you like". She accepts a copy too.

I asked her the six questions in the front of the book and ask if she has ever wondered any of them. She said she had wondered them all but that she would really like to know what happens when we die. I ask what she had been taught. She said she had been taught that if you are good you go to heaven and if you are bad then you go to hell and burn forever.

We go and sit around the side of the house in the shade and we get out the bible and the teach book and see if we can find the answer. She said she worries where some of her friends and family are because you don’t really know if they have been good or not so maybe they are in hell and she wonders what will happen to her if she dies, will she have been good enough not to burn in hell. Also here in Belize there is the Garifuna culture where they believe that the dead can come back and hurt you, so she worries about that too.

This is how our discussion went.

We read par 5 and 6 from chapt 6 in the teach book. I say to her. "What we will do is get the bible out and have a read of these scriptures and then see what the bible teaches about the condition on the dead.

Let’s read Ecc 9:5, 6, 10" So she read them. I ask "So what do the living know will happen to them at some point?" "They will die" she says. "Right" I say "so what does the bible say the dead are conscious of?" "Nothing" she says. I then say "If you were to go to heaven or hell do you think you would know about it?" Definitely, what would be the point of going there is you didn’t know you were there?" she says. "That’s exactly right" I say, "so if the dead are conscious of nothing then how would they know they were in heaven or hell, they wouldn’t would they?" "No" she says nodding.

"Now let’s look at Ps 146:4 and see what it says. She reads this one too. I ask "so what does the bible say happens to our thoughts when we die" "They perish" she says. I ask "so what does that mean?" "That they can’t think or know anything" she says. I agree with her. I go on to say "so we have seen that the bible teaches that we all die but that when we die we cease to exist, we are conscious of nothing at all and that our thoughts perish. It’s just like a candle, when you flick out the flame it just disappears, it doesn’t go anywhere, and it’s just gone. So let’s see what Jesus said about death in the next paragraph".

She reads par 7 about the account of Lazarus. We also use the bible again to read the account of Lazarus and I ask, "What did Jesus say about death here?" She replies, "He said that Lazarus was asleep". "That’s right" I say "now lets look at Acts 7:60 and see what it says" This is the script about Stephen being stoned to death and saying that he fell asleep in death. We also read 1 Cor 15:6 which also says that some faithful ones had fallen asleep in death. I ask "so what does the bible compare death to?" "To sleep" she says with wide eyes, she then exclaims "but if we go nowhere when we die why do we die?"

So we skip over to par 9-11 which talks about Satan deceiving Eve and then Adam etc, I explain that if a cake tin has a dent in it all the cakes will have dents too, that’s the same with us and imperfection. Cheyanne then laughs and says "so we are all dented with imperfection!"
I go on to ask how long Adam and Eve were supposed to live, forever of course, so if they did not sin where would they be today? Still alive here on earth we say at the same time. Her eyes get wide again and she says ‘so that’s why we die!?" "Yes" I said.

"Now look at Gen 3:19 and see what it says about what happens when we die" She reads this too. "So what happens to the body when it dies?" I ask. "It just goes back to the ground, so there is nothing scary about hell there!" she says. This time I say "That’s right. When you think about what you were taught about heaven and hell. Where would you have said Adam and Eve went, to heaven or hell?" "I would have said hell for sure, but the bible said that they just went back to the dust where they had come from, no mention of heaven or hell!"

Then all of a sudden she goes off on a rant that went something like this, I can’t remember all she said but this is pretty close, "I can’t believe that the Garifuna people and all these other religions teach that about hell. Why God that loves us, even the bad ones would put anyone in hell and burn them forever. Why would anyone teach that? It’s not even in the bible, I don’t understand, why would anyone do that, it’s terrible!" She went on for quite some time to herself about this. This young lady is about 17-19 I think and amazed me with her reasoning skills.
So I go back and ask her again. "What does the bible really teach about the condition of the dead?" She explains back to me using the bible herself this time just what she has learnt. The bible does not teach the when you die we all go to heaven or hell. It teaches that God is Love and that he would never torment not even people who hate him in hell. That when we die we are conscious of nothing and that we simply go back to the ground from where we were taken. There is nothing confusing or scary about this teaching, which makes sense when you think about our loving God. He wants us to understand him.

There is also not really any other way to interpret those scriptures, maybe you could if only one scripture said that, but not when the bible is full of them and we had only looked at a few of them. I asked Cheyanne how she felt knowing this. She exclaimed "I feel so much happier. I don’t have to worry about any dead person hurting me and I don’t have to worry what will happen to me when I die. I know what the bible teaches know, I know what Jesus said about death now. I feel so much better!" She held her bible to her chest, just as her mother had done a few days before and thanked God for showing her the truth.

What a wonderful experience. She then went on to ask if there was any hope for the dead, so we will discuss that next time I go for her study.

She said she can’t wait to tell her mother that she is studying the same book.

I can only imagine the wonderful talks they will have together musing over the new things they learn.