An Interview with an Undertaker: Distortion of Life from Death

Before I go on, I would like to thank the people who have been reading this post and asking me questions. I really appreciate the feedback and discussion. I look forward to seeing you on my blog more often and discuss issues with me as I continue to post. I would also like to thank the undertaker for allowing me this interview and lastly, thank God for this to even happen. :)

From previous interviews, it is shared that we can find out from the Bible that death is certainly not a desirable outcome. It is a punishment from God due to man's evil doing. Having said that, the idea of heaven and hell is real and there is an afterlife whether we like it or not. In this final installment of the 4 part mini-series, it is explained that Death is certainly not supposed to be a natural process, contrary to what most people believe. In the end, we are presented with 2 choices through the interview of the undertaker at the end: To live or not to live. Everything I say from here on will be superfluous, so I will just leave it to the undertaker to do the talking. 

Distortion of Life from Death

Do you think Death is a natural process? Why?

Death is not a natural process but a consequence of an ungodly choice by man. God has given a stern warning, “But of the tree of of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”. Genesis 2:17. Sin is disobedience to Him. When Adam disobeyed God and took the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God commanded not to, he sinned against God and as a consequence death resulted. The wages of sin is death. Rpmans 6:23.     

I can immediately see 3 things that Sin makes us do.

1.      Sin will cost us more than we want to pay. Taking the example of the Israelites after the Battle of Jericho. One amongst them named Achan, in disobedience took and hid some silver and gold under his tent. The silver and gold was supposed to have gone to God’s treasury and the rest of the spoils in Jericho was to be destroyed.  But Achan took  and kept for himself. The consequence of his sin was that his sons and daughters, his belongings including his animals were stoned and burnt. It was certainly more than he wanted to pay for his sins. A criminal may be sentenced to a long imprisonment or even be put to death for his sins. When he committed the crime surely he did not expect to be caught and be made to pay for his crime, a price that he would not be willing to pay.

2.      Sin will make you stay longer than you want to stay. The Israelites stayed forty more years going around in the wilderness because of their sins of not trusting God to lead them into the Promised Land. A drug addict gets stuck on his habit that he becomes enslaved to for many years and for many their lifetime; or an adulterer who thought that it was just going to be a one night stand developed a long term affair that destroys his entire family and trust of his loved ones. I have a friend who started flirting with a woman and then they started to have an affair and he lived more than twenty years in this sinful relationship and all these years of lying to his wife and family.

3.      Sin makes you go further than you want to go. For example, in the Bible we read that King David saw Bathsheba bathing and he lusted over her and took her to bed. Then when she became pregnant, he started to devise her husband’s death. Sex leads to murder and later we also read that there was chaos in his palace and household. I think we will be familiar with telling a lie, then cover it with more and more lies. This is what it means when I say sin makes us go further than we want to go.

And sin leads to death. So death is a fruit of our sins and was never intended to be natural. It only came upon mankind when sin came into the picture. But if we view death from the already fallen nature of man, then death does seem to be a natural conclusion to life.    

If you permit me, I would like to share some thoughts about how to avoid situations that might make us fall into sin. Let us visit the Garden of Eden.

In the Garden of Eden, God permits man to eat of any fruit except the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His warning was that the day he eats of that forbidden fruit he shall surely die. But we noted that Adam and Eve were in the vicinity of that forbidden tree. In other words they were where they should not have been. Then we also noticed that there was Satan in the form of the serpent with them. They were in the wrong company. Then Satan started to talk with them. They were engaged in wrong talks with the wrong company. What happened?

Satan started to get their attention away from the great liberty and free life that God had lavished on them. He then focused on the one and only restriction and started to make them feel that God has shortchanged them. Satan lied to make them blind to God’s goodness and made them feel that God’s intentions for them were not good, that He did not want them to be like Him. To summarise, Satan blinded Man to God’s good will, then he planted the seeds of doubt that made them challenge God’s authority, and he robbed Man of life because he knew the penalty of breaking God’s law is Death.

No, Death was never meant to be a natural event in life. Unfortunately, Man chose death when he chose not to believe God. But we thank God that He did not just leave Man to die and be separated from Him forever. God sent His son Jesus to bear the death penalty on our behalf. As we have it now, our physical body will die, but we have eternal spiritual life with God when we believe and receive Jesus in our hearts.

“For God so loved the World that He gave His only Son that whosoever (you and me) believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” John 3:16

Choose Life.