Just remember this: you cannot possibly go to heaven without traveling the road which leads there. A lot of people would like to go to heaven but they don’t want to travel the road which leads there. They want to travel some other road and then get to heaven. Well, you can’t travel the road that leads to Memphis and get to Chattanooga, can you? You can’t travel the road that leads to hell and wind up in heaven. It just can’t be done. So if you want to go to heaven more than you want to do anything else in this world and are willing to put forth the effort required to do it, you can certainly go there.
That to me is a very encouraging thought. My destiny, under God, is completely within my own hands. I don’t have to depend upon anybody else’s wishes, anybody else’s choice or word about it whatsoever. God wants me to go to heaven, and with that point settled then it is all up to me, and you can’t keep me from going there. Nobody else can, if I want to go. Nobody can keep you from going! Sometimes people make excuses, and they blame others for their failure. They find fault with other people and say, “He did so and so, and therefore I did so and so.” That’s no good at all. There is nobody in this world who can keep you from going to heaven if you want to.
III
Three Rules
From this point on I shall assume that I am speaking to people who do want to go to heaven. On this assumption I can give you three little rules to follow, which will insure your success. I do not mean that the mere formality of doing these three things will make you safe for heaven. There is not necessarily any virtue in the mere routine suggested. But granting that you want to go to heaven, if you will follow these three simple rules, they will enable you to do what you want to do. The beauty of them is that they are so simple that anybody can follow them who wants to.
1. The first one is to read the Bible every day. If you want to go to heaven, you are willing to do that much, aren’t you? If you really want to go to heaven, won’t you want to read the Bible? It’s the book that tells you how to get there. It is the road map that shows you the way. If you want to go to heaven, the first rule then is to read the Bible every day. From doing that you’ll learn what God wants you to do in order to be saved and in order to keep saved. The Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians “because they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily” (Acts 16:11). Now, if you don’t read the Bible every day, I believe you’d have a hard time establishing the fact that you want to go to heaven. Don’t you believe you would? How can you prove that you want to go to heaven when you fail to read the only book in the world which can tell you how to get there?
I suspect that I’m talking to two or three hundred people right now who don’t read the Bible daily, and if I knew how to make this more emphatic, I’d do it! I’d like to fix it so you never would forget it. The Bible is the only book that can tell you how to do what you propose to want to do. It is the word which God hath spoken. The mere fact that you are a member of the church is an announcement that you want to go to heaven, but your behavior contradicts your profession, if you do not read the Bible every day.
I have found sometimes that those people who argue the loudest and take the most dogmatic positions on points of doctrine are the very ones who don’t read the Bible. They think they know! They can tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. If you ask them how much they read the Bible, they’ll hang their heads in shame and say, “Well, I haven’t read it much.” Sometimes they even preface their remarks by telling you they haven’t read it much. They say, “Now, preacher, I don’t read the Bible much, and I know you do, and so and so” and then proceed to tell me just exactly how it is. A man who doesn’t read the Bible has no right to express an opinion in the field of religion. A man who begins his conversation by saying, “Now, I’ll admit I don’t read the Bible,” ought to stop right there until he has read it. He doesn’t have any right to talk about it, nor to undertake to tell anybody what to do, or what one ought to do until he has read the Bible—the only reliable standard of right living. “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby” (1 Pet. 2:2). “Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (Jas. 1:21). “Study to show thyself approved unto God ...” (2 Tim. 2:15).
If you will read the Bible every day, there is not much that needs to be done for you; if you will not read the Bible, there is not much that can be done for you! Anybody who doesn’t love the Lord well enough to read this letter that He has written, anyone who doesn’t want to go to heaven bad enough to be a daily student of God’s word, I just can’t see much chance for him. One of the most alarming things is the ignorance of our own people concerning the Bible. Many of our own members are not daily students of God’s holy word. I wish I could say something that would scare you just as much as the second boy who fell in the grave. If I knew what to say, I’d say it. I’d like for you to become so badly scared that you would read the Bible every day.
Now, you can do it! If you don’t read it, you cannot blame anybody but yourself for your failure. You say, “But, Brother Dark, I don’t have time.” Oh, yes, you do; you have as much time as anybody. There are twenty-four hours in the day and you have all twenty-four of them. You say, “Yes, but I have so many other things to do.” Well, are those other things as important as going to heaven? Do you love them more than you love going to heaven? Do you want to do them more than you want to be saved?
How many of you read the newspaper every day? I suspect we would get a unanimous response on that. How many of you listen to the radio every day? Now, it is not wrong to listen to the radio. It’s not wrong to read the newspaper, maybe, but certainly you will agree that a man who loves the newspaper and the typical radio program more than he loves the Lord isn’t much interested in going to heaven. He had rather go where they have newspapers and radios, than to go to heaven where they have the word of God and a choir of angels singing.