BOOKS
Did you ever consider the number of books that must exist in the world? It is said that the US Library of Congress contains over 39 million books and other printed materials held on approximately 835 miles of shelving. And that’s only one library out of many throughout the world. Today, we have many more ways to disseminate knowledge in addition to books. Obviously, it would be impossible to assimilate even a fraction of the information contained in these volumes, even if one lived many lifetimes.
The Bible, although a collection of books itself, also mentions a number of other tomes within its pages. There are, in fact, quite a few including the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 24:7), the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14), and the acts of Rehoboam:
are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet
(2 Chronicles 12:15)
In addition, we read of the Book of Enoch in Jude and, of course, among many other books mentioned is the Book of Life.
“He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments,
and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life…”
(Revelation 3:5)
And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.
(Revelation 20:12)
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
(Revelation 20:15)
One of the most amazing books, of course, is the Bible itself. Written over a period of 1000 to 1500 years, with no human there to guide its pages over that period of time, the Bible gives us in Genesis the creation of heavens and the earth, the beginning of the curse, the appearance of death, and the disappearance of the tree of life. In the last book of the Bible we see the creation of a new heaven and earth, the end of the curse and of death, and the reappearance off the tree of life.
But the primary purpose of the Bible is not to give us a summary of human history but to give us a way to know God. As it states:
…the world through wisdom did not know God…
(1 Corinthians 1:21)
…when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods.
(Galatians 4:8)
They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him…
(Titus 1:16)
By knowing God, then hopefully our names will be in the book that takes us to heaven and not stricken from same so that we end up elsewhere. But we can’t read all that’s written in the books we have now and so can’t know everything that is to be known about earth, so how can we get to know God just by reading the Bible? We really can’t, but at least it would give us the Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth. And perhaps, in essence, that’s why there is an eternity. It will probably take that long to get to know in any real way the creator and sustainer of the universe.
Just one more thing to think about.
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