I have a question for you. How many people do you know? The person can be a relative, a friend, people you know from work, school, church, or wherever. Let’s say that you know 100 people. Out of these 100 people, how many of them do you think would say they believe in God? Most people would answer that they all believe in God or at least 95% of them. Ok, now how many of them would you say want to go to Heaven when they die? Again, mostly all would answer that they want to go to Heaven. Now out of the 100, how many do you think know what it takes to get to heaven? Most people would say that they know. They’ll say they know that they have to “be good”, ask for forgiveness for the bad stuff they’ve done and do “good things” like pray, go to church, etc.
Now the tough questions. Out of the 100 people you know, how many of them have read the whole Bible? I’m not talking about just a few verses here or there or just the New Testament or a few books of the Bible, but I’m talking about the whole Bible from the first page in Genesis to the last page in the book of Revelations. I’ve asked this question to several people and the average answer I get is somewhere around 5-10 and most of those people are just assumed to have read the whole Bible it’s not 100% sure.
The Truth
What if I told you that out of the 100 people that you know only 3 people have read the whole Bible from beginning to end. And what if I told you that out of the 100 people that you know only 2 of them are going to heaven. That’s sounds crazy, right? Obviously we don’t know who is going to heaven only God decides that and only God will be the one judging us when that time comes. The reality is that those numbers may not be farfetched.
Most people believe in life after death. If you ask someone under 30 years old, how long they wish to live, most would say over 60 years old. Most would agree that none of us would live to be over 120 years old. The reality is that most of us will die before the age of 70 to 80 years old if not sooner. The reality is also that a majority of people that die will not be going to Heaven because they don’t know the truth about God, His nature, His promises, His covenants, His commands, or what it takes to get to Heaven.
The Secret?
What if I told you that I know the secret to get to Heaven and everybody that knows this secret will know everything they need in order to get to Heaven. Are you ready for the secret? The secret is……. that there is no secret. Everything we need to know in order to go to heaven is in the Bible. The Bible is the user guide or manual to life. Everything we need to know about God, His nature, His will for our lives is all in this book. Everything we need to know about what it takes to get to Heaven is in this Book. Let me be clear about this, the act of reading the Bible will not save you or get you to Heaven. What will save you are the revelations, promises, covenants and teachings that God has given us that are found in His word.
The Bible is not a secret. Bible is available for everyone. The Bible is not just available for the wealthy, or for the most attractive, or the most intelligent. The Bible is available everywhere. It’s easy to get access to one. The Bible is free online, it’s in almost every library, and almost every hotel room in America has a bible in it. So what’s our excuse for not reading it?
We will be accountable
When we buy a house we make sure to hire a real estate agent because they have knowledge of the contracts, inspections and laws to buying a house. When we are getting sued we hire an lawyer who knows the laws. What if there were no such things as a real estate agents or lawyers? What if everyone had to fend for themselves? If that was the case most of us would do some research on our own before buying a house, we would make sure we knew the laws before going in front of a judge. Well, that is exactly how it will be when we die. We will stand alone before God when we give account for all our actions.
No Excuse
Most people’s beliefs or theology about God and His nature is based on what we’ve heard others say such as our church pastor, our parents or grandparents. We hear or see the Bible quoted in books, on television or on the internet. We heard or read a few bible verses on our own while we were in church or when we were young, growing up in Sunday school. Most of us have never attempted to search the truth found in the Bible on our own.
If we know our time on earth is short and that everything we need to know to get to heaven is in the Bible, why don’t we all read it? Why don’t we do our own research? Why don’t we read and learn first-hand about God, His nature, His promises, His covenants, His commands, or what is required to get to Heaven? Why is it so difficult to get people to read the most important book that will show us the road to salvation? We come up with every excuse on why we don’t read it. The truth is that we have no excuse.
