Good News for You
For decades people have been discussing the effects of the information explosion and how it affects the human mind. It has been said that a weekly edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in an entire lifetime in seventeenth-century England.
There are 300,000 new book titles[1] and more than 9000 periodicals published[2] every year.
Even back in 1934, Jose Ortega y Gasset warned that books were so prolific they were “turning against humankind.”[3]
Standing out in the midst of the sea of information is one book that has benefitted mankind in more ways than can be measured. It contains all that we need to know about life and how to live it as our Creator intended (2 Timothy 3.16,17). While this book is a veritable treasure chest of helpful information for life today, it contains basic information that is essential to being assured of life eternal.
The Bible says that every member of the human race has a problem. It identifies that problem as “sin.” Any action or thought that falls short of God’s perfect standard of holiness is sin. None of us meets that perfect standard because we all have sinned (Romans 3.23). This problem is compounded by the fact God is a holy God and cannot tolerate sin. The Bible says that, as a consequence of our sin, we are separated from God, unable to have fellowship with Him (Habakkuk 1.13). The Bible says that the ultimate result of our sin is death, both physical (ultimate separation from our body and loved ones) and spiritual (separation from God) (Romans 6.23).
The dreadful thing about this problem is that there is absolutely nothing we ourselves can do to remedy it. Anything we might try to do, even our very best efforts and good works, are unavoidably tainted by our sin and therefore unacceptable to God insofar as attaining forgiveness for our sin (Isaiah 64.6).
[3]Biggs, Mary. “Information Overload and Information Seekers: What We Know About Them, What to Do About Them.” The Reference Librarian 25/26 (1989): 411-429.
