Praise be to God, there is no other God except God. God willing, today I want to talk about the fact that God made the way to heaven the easiest way possible, and I literally mean the easiest way possible.

What got me thinking about this recently is that I saw a trailer for a movie like The Odyssey. Some of you might have seen it. It’s supposed to be a big-budget movie, and the background story of The Odyssey, in the ancient Greek myths, is that one of the gods is not happy with the main character and imposes some challenges for him. He has to go through those challenges to achieve the success, and he ends up having a really long trip which could have been a very short trip. And in many religion you see this—kind of like fake religions. Like the gods will demand a lot. They ask a lot, requiring you to do a certain type of yoga and this amount of hours. Or they ask lots of sacrifices—let’s say the Aztec religions. They even demand human sacrifices, in some ancient religions. And you can see that they were actually not that creative because —those are fake gods of course. They don’t exist— but the way humans imagined them is as not really that merciful.

But our God, The True God, is The Most Merciful. And we know that because God willing, today I will tell you why he made it so that we can go to heaven in the easiest way possible. I am not talking about an “easy way” as some sort of relative term “Oh, it’s kind of easy” —you know how when someone learns advanced math, like calculus, and someone asks them how they did it, they say it’s easy. Not in that way. I literally mean easy for everyone: no efforts at all, the easiest way possible, no efforts at all. God says this in the Quran a lot because it’s true, not because he is trying to convince us as an advertisement strategy. It is a fact. So, let’s analyze what I mean by this.

For us to get to heaven, God didn’t say that to get to heaven, you have to lift 200 kilograms of weights, or to get to heaven you have to climb the highest peak in the world. God didn’t make it like they make it in school. To get to heaven you have to go twelve years in school, eight years, or four years, whatever it is. Or to get to heaven you have to complete this course and after you complete this course you get a certificate and then you get to heaven. All of those require effort. Some of them more efforts, some of them less efforts. But they do require effort. Its a level of difficulty. It’s not any of those, it is actually easier. It’s easier than let’s say, to get to heaven you have to lift up your hand. Just say I want to get to heaven. It easier even than that. Imagine if heaven was like: “Who wants to go to heaven, lift up your hand”. That would require efforts, see there’s some effort. I have to lift up my hand. That’s a little bit hard. I mean not that hard, but it does require some effort. It is easier than that. Or let’s say God could have made it so that oh to get to heaven you have to wink maybe. Just go like this and you’ll go to heaven. That’s easy. Just wink or blink your eyes or blink twice. If you blink twice you can get to heaven. God could have made it like that. God could have made it any way he wanted. Of course, he made it the correct way and the most merciful way, but he could have made it any way he wanted. He could have made any of those as requirements. Because he’s God. He could have done that. But he made it easier than any of those. It’s easier than just blinking your eyes. It’s easier than lifting your hand. It’s easier than anything possible. It’s the easiest way possible.

So what does it require to make it to heaven according to the way God designed the system? To get to heaven all God asks from us is believe. So if you want to go to heaven, believe. Simple as that. No action required, no efforts required, no thinking required. Belief is just belief. You either believe it or you don’t. See, disbelief actually requires more effort because when you disbelieve, you’re like, “Oh, is he trying to fool me? Is there some manipulation going on? What are the chances? What’s going on behind closed doors?” So that’s disbelief. You’re evaluating. You’re sort of trying to think from the perspective of the other side. You’re trying to kind of like see if you’re being tricked. That requires some efforts, because now you have to think and analyze. It becomes more like a chess game. But, all that is required, it’s the easiest thing possible. All that God requires us to make it to heaven is just believe. That’s it. Just believe.

Someone might say, “But wait a minute, doesn’t God ask us to do the contact prayer, honor our parents, do not commit adultery, give the zakat, what else there’s so many requirements, don’t drink alcohol, don’t eat pork, read the Quran, stuff like that” Doesn’t God require that? Well, if we truly understand the Quran at the deeper level, we see that those are just results. Those are the results of belief. That’s why the Quran never says, do the contact prayer. It says if you believe, you will do the contact prayer. In a verse in the Quran and quite a few verses, God says something like you have to do the contact prayer, you have to do this, you have to do that, there’s quite a a few sort of requirements given there, and then it says this is difficult indeed but not so for the believers. So, for the believers it’s easy, for the disbelievers it’s hard. So, if you believe those come automatically it’s a prediction it’s not a law which you have to fulfill. It’s not like oh you have to do this, you have to do that’s how we understand it usually. And actually in English quite often it’s translated like that, which is fine. Because in the western culture they think of things like that as laws, like even the laws of Newton as they are described as laws. What they really mean is predictions about what will happen if you drop let’s say a ball, they say “oh, the law of gravity”. What they mean is, it’s a prediction of what will happen. God’s will. A better a better way to to express it is God’s will. And actually in the Arabic when you look at it how the Quran describes the words for laws it’s it actually decree. It means decree. Decree means this is what will happen. A prophecy. This is God’s will and God has willed or God has decreed that this will happen. Meaning if you believe, and that’s the requirement, if you believe and that requirement is as we can see is absolutely easy. If you believe you will do the contact prayer. It’s not that God is forcing you, but you will just end up being a person who does the contact prayer. It’s like saying you if you’re an apple you’ll have some sugar in it. It’s automatic. If you believe you will not drink alcohol. Of course, if you believe fully, if you believe 100%. If you believe 50%, you might end up drinking alcohol once in a while. Not that I recommend it, but what I’m saying is like all those are actually just results, prophecies about what a believer will do.

But the way you make it to heaven is through belief. And of course, if you believe, the signs of believe are those. It’s like check marks. Oh, I I know I believe because I’ve done this, this this. It’s not like, oh, I have to do this so I can believe. No contact prayer ever can lead you to believe. But belief, absolute belief will always lead you to a contact prayer. Can you see the difference? Like which leads to to which you can force yourself. There’s a verse in the Quran which says who wo to the those who do the contact prayers who are healed during the contact prayers. You can force yourself to do the contact prayer. It’s not going to lead to belief if you force yourself. But if you believe it will lead to the contact prayer, not because it’s hard, but because it’s easy. And it just it just works. It just And someone actually asked me like years ago, oh, how do you do you then how do you then how do you believe? Well, you either do or you don’t. That’s kind of like God made it like that. That’s how easy it is. You do. If you believe, you believe. If you don’t believe, you don’t believe. And that’s because God has chosen who’s going to go to heaven. And who’s going to go to hell? If you believe, you’ll go to heaven. If you don’t believe, you will go to hell. That’s it. It’s the easiest thing possible. Why is why is believe the easiest thing possible? It doesn’t require any physical effort. You don’t have to lift up your hand or anything. It doesn’t require any mental effort. It’s not even a mental effort. You don’t even have to breathe harder. It’s the easiest thing possible. Believe, just you just believe. Like you hear something and you believe it. Like children can do it. You know when a child first kind of let’s say becomes two or three years old, you tell them something, they just believe. Oh yeah, that’s true. That what it is. They ask you why does it rain? Oh, because there’s evaporation in the air and that it cools down. Sort of. It’s sort of true. And they believe. Children will believe. They don’t think. In the beginning, they don’t think you’re lying. It’s the easiest thing. A child can do it. As soon as they learn how to speak, they can do it. Okay, just think. Seriously, just think how much effort does it require to believe? Zero. Zero efforts. Like you hear it, you believe it or you don’t. No action, no thinking, no preparation, none of that is required. It’s the easiest thing. It doesn’t take a few months like a course or a few years like school. So you can be ready to go to heaven. No, you just at that same moment you get a certificate to heaven, if you just believe. Just believe. As simple as that. You cannot force yourself to believe. But if you believe, you believe. It’s as simple as that. You just believe and that’s it. I’m not telling you to believe. If you believe, you believe. If you don’t believe, you don’t believe. I cannot make you a believer. If you are a believer; if God made you a believer; if God chose the destiny for you to be to heaven, he made you a believer. And all the others then come afterwards. Like doing the contact prayer. It’s not that then they have to be done. God has told Muhammad, let’s say—that’s why people who tell us about these so-called laws are called prophets; they’re telling us what will happen in the future—a believer will do the contact prayer. An absolute believer will always do the contact prayer. It’s a prophecy. It’s a future prediction about what will happen to a certain person. Just like saying, “Oh, an old person eventually will die.” It’s a prophecy. That’s also in the Quran. The Quran says everyone dies. We think of it as a law. That’s also a “law”. But can anyone sort of cause the law or not cause the law? It just happens. When you get old, you die eventually. And you either go to heaven or not. But there’s nothing you can do about it. The same thing with belief. You either believe or you don’t. If God chooses you to be a to be a believer, you will be a believer. If God chooses you not to you won’t be a believer.

By the way, belief is momentary. Like for every moment you can be a believer or disbeliever. So, I don’t want to classify people that easy like that. We can classify people into submitters versus non-submitters. But belief is at every moment, you are a believer or a disbeliever. You can be a believer most of the moments most of the time and a disbeliever part of the time. So it’s about the moment; every moment you are a believer or a disbeliever. God chooses you to be a believer or disbeliever compared to submission which is kind of like an official one-time thing, which you can do. The difference is like marriage and love. You can choose to be married and you’re kind of constantly married even if you don’t do anything. But love is at every moment. At every moment you love someone or you don’t. But later on you might not and then later on you might love them again. So it measures every moment. But marriage kind of, it’s more like a one time thing. That’s how submission and belief are. Of course in good circumstances, love should lead to marriage and marriage should continue with love. Just like belief should lead to submission and submission should continue with additional belief. But, at the end of the day belief is what matters. And is the easiest thing, the thing which matters the most God made it the easiest thing possible.

Some people think that when God is saying God made religion easy in the Quran, when God says that in the Quran, they think that God is trying to advertise the religion, they think, “Oh, it’s actually a little bit hard. You have to do the contact prayer. That’s how most people think.” And then, when they read that, they’re like, “Oh, God is just trying to advertise it. He’s trying to encourage us.” Kind of like when you go, let’s say if you go to a gym or let’s say if you go to school and you’re having difficulties and let’s say your parents tell you, “Oh, it’s easy.” Like “just try this, try that. It’s easy.” They’re trying to encourage you to finish that task. When God says it’s easy, he doesn’t, he’s not trying to do that. He’s just like it’s easy. It’s literally easy. It’s a fact. There’s no hidden motive behind that. Just easy. It’s just easy. How easy? You just believe. What action does believe require? None. What efforts does believe require? None. You believe or you don’t. It’s just (Snaps finger) like that. It’s even easier than that. Actually, this requires some effort. But you just believe. Like, has anyone thought about how much effort does it require to believe? It’s less effort than disbelieving. Disbelieving actually requires some effort. You have to think and to calculate and to strategize, when you disbelieve. But when you believe, no effort whatsoever. And I mean absolutely no effort. Not relatively no effort. Absolutely no effort. You hear it and you believe. That’s it.

And I don’t get it how some people just cannot do that. It’s really interesting how some people just cannot do that. When someone tells you something, you just believe. How hard is it? How some people cannot do that. I don’t get it. Like you tell them something, especially criminals, you tell them, let’s say the police will tell them, “Oh, you have to come to the police station.” “Oh, I know you’re trying to arrest me.” Like immediately they think something else. It’s like their communication is broken. You tell them something, they think something else. Typically criminals will do that. Like, “Oh, can you come here?” Maybe you want to give them a free pizza. They’ll be like, “Oh, what does he want?/ What does she want?” Like they think beyond that. They think they are smart. Let me just think beyond it. How about you just don’t. Just take their word for it? That’s what belief requires. I’m just going to—whatever the person says—I’m just going to take their words for it. Of course, the Quran prevents us from believing anyone, like not being stupid. Because that would be naive. But naive, if you got no other information except for God’s information, being naive, would be a good thing. Because we have the Quran, it prevents us from being naive. But belief like as a principle, it has zero efforts. Let’s repent, Touboo ila Allah.

Praise be to God. There’s no other god except God.

Someone might say, it could have been even easier and let’s see if it could have been easier. Like God could have been even more merciful and make it even easier. Some people might say, you know what? What if it was no belief at all? Like it doesn’t matter if you believe. Let’s say what if God made it so for you to be in heaven or to go to heaven, it doesn’t even matter if you believe, like you have to do nothing. Why didn’t God just do that? He did actually. Belief is the next easiest thing possible. The easiest thing is to do nothing, like just exist. The easiest thing: exist, the next easiest thing is belief. So why didn’t God make it so that we just exist? He did. He created us in heaven. We wanted the challenge and he gave us the easiest possible challenge. Imagine God creating the creatures. “I’m going to create these creatures; the easiest thing possible. They are in heaven already. No efforts whatsoever. No challenge to fulfill, no course to take, no nothing.” You’re just in heaven. That’s how we were in heaven. And then when Satan challenged God’s absolute authority, we wanted a challenge. I guess that’s how humans are. And He could have been mad. He could have been like, “Oh, you guys are maybe with Satan’s side. So, I’m going to give you a challenge to go back to heaven.” You want a challenge? Fine. I’ll give you a challenge. 10 years in school, 50 years working in a mine, whatever. God could have made it like that. But he didn’t. Even after asking for a challenge, for a test, what did God do? He made it the easiest possible. Just believe. The Quran says that God gave Adam words by which he redeemed him. All Adam had to do, is believe. Believe those words. Whatever God told him, believe it and that’s it.

Of course, if you believe that will lead to certain features which you will have. You’ll do the contact prayer, you’ll do that. But that’s just the result. It’s automatic. It’s kind of like a ball rolling down the hill. Whether the ball will roll down this hill or that hill. That’s the initial moment. But then afterwards it just rolls down, down the hill. No efforts. Sometimes we try to make efforts, understandable. Because we see other people doing it and we think “Oh, let’s try”. That’s kind of training for probably future belief but it really doesn’t lead to belief. You either believe or you don’t believe. That shows that you want to believe. But wanting to believe it doesn’t mean you believe. Believing actually requires no efforts. That this is really hard for some people to get it. It just requires no efforts. You believe, it requires no efforts to believe. And then actually when you do it like that, even the so-called laws which are actually prophecies about what will happen to you, just feel easier. “Okay, I believe. So, it’s my destiny that I’m going to do the contact prayer at this time of the day, that time of the day. It’s my destiny. It’s not that I’m kind of like forcing myself into that destiny. It’s just my destiny. God willed it.”

By the way, this is why in the Quran, God, whenever He gives a law, so-called law, which is a decree, a prophecy, he always says, “Oh, you who believe.” He doesn’t say, “Oh, do the contact prayer.” And some people do it and other people don’t do it. That would be with efforts because some people are doing, other people are not doing it. But he says, “Oh, you who believe, do the contact prayer.” That means that no one is breaking the law. No one is breaking God’s law. If he said do the contact prayer, everyone would do the contact prayer, because God’s word is True. In the Quran, it says that when God says be, it is. Like there’s no way to escape it. If God said, “Oh, you people do the contact prayer.” Everyone would do the contact prayer because what God says is true and it becomes true. God’s word automatically becomes true. If God said, “Oh, you people do the contact prayer.” Everyone in the world would do the contact prayer. It would be automatic. There’s no choice. But some people don’t do it, because God didn’t say for them to do it. God said, “Oh you who believe, do the contact prayer.” So it’s a prophecy. If you believe, you can think of it like this. If you believe, it is God’s will that you will do the contact prayer. If you do not believe, it is again God’s will, because of your own mistakes, but it is again God’s will, that you will not do the context prayer.

By the way, God doesn’t want your contact prayer. Doesn’t want a person’s contact prayer if he doesn’t believe. What’s the value of it, if you don’t believe. As I’m saying what matters is that we believe, and that’s how we get to heaven. However, it’s a feature. It’s how a person is when he believes that he does the contact prayer. He doesn’t lie and all of those. So yeah, God created religion in the easiest way possible. It requires absolutely no effort. Just believe. When God says that, believe it. When God says something else, believe it. And by the way, this shows how merciful God is. It’s like people want God to be hard like some more difficult God for us. That’s why, I guess, some of them don’t believe. They’re like, “Oh, that’s what it takes. I thought it should be something else.” No, you just believe and then it’s the result of belief that you do other things. But those other things don’t send you to heaven. It’s the belief which sends you to heaven, or hell if you don’t believe.

But believing comes automatically with features. What do I mean with features? It’s just it happens. It’s God’s will that those who believe will do that. Will do the good things. It just feels natural. Try it. It doesn’t even make sense to say try it. because you either believe or you don’t. But what I’m saying is when you believe, if you just empty your mind and you believe, you’re like “Okay let me just focus on belief. do I believe?” And then you will see that everything gets easier instead of focusing, “Oh, do I do this? Do I do that? Do I do that? What about this law? What about that law? What about” How about you just believe. If you believe, by the way, it doesn’t matter what I say, you’ll make the right choice. Doesn’t matter what I say, you’ll make the right choice. It doesn’t matter if you have the Quran, you’ll make the right choice. Belief existed before the Quran. Before the Quran was revealed. And then it’s a feature of believers that when the Quran is revealed, they believe. But if it wasn’t the Quran, if it was some other book, the Bible which God revealed or whatever, they would believe that. So it’s about the belief. It’s not about this rule, that rule.

Of course, eventually every person gets a better and better believer. Every submitter, because if he’s a true submitter, and true believer they become better and better believers, so they fulfill more and more of those “laws”, which are actually, in Arabic, decrees, God’s will. It’s not things we have to do. In the law, like in the western country sense, like it’s the law not to drive the car in the red traffic light. That’s the way they think of laws. You can actually break the law if you want to. I’m not talking laws like that. I’m talking laws like what they call, the law of gravity. It just happens. It’s not a human choice to make it or break it. It just happens. If you are a believer, you end up doing that. If you’re a disbeliever, you end up doing that. It’s a prophecy. What will happen to you? How will your life look like if you believe? If you believe your life will look like someone who doesn’t lie, someone who doesn’t steal, someone who doesn’t drink alcohol, someone who does the contact prayer, someone who doesn’t eat pork, someone who doesn’t gamble.

By the way, let me just answer quickly. I think someone asked about gambling. Gambling; yeah it’s prohibited in the Quran and it’s sort of sometimes we don’t have a choice. There’s products which include gambling in it, let’s say a chocolate or something because they are mixed with a good thing, then yeah, it’s probably fine. But if you can separate it, then gambling is absolutely prohibited. For example, if you own a company and you want to use gambling as an advertisement strategy, you have a choice. You can separate the gambling from the company. So basically, unless you’re an employee there and you have no choice, but if it’s your company and you have a choice to use gambling as an advertisement strategy, then you shouldn’t do it. A believer wouldn’t do it. It’s obvious a believer wouldn’t do it. But again, if you believe, you would make the right choice, even if I didn’t tell you. If you don’t believe, you’d make the wrong choice, even if I told you. So, it’s not about sort of trying to force ourselves to go after the laws. It’s about believing. You just believe or you don’t. You’re either a believer, or you’re not. And then if you’re a believer, you will end up automatically—God has willed it, that you will end up doing those good things which the Quran mentions and not doing the bad things which the Quran mentions. It’s as simple as that.

And the belief is the easiest thing you can do. You just believe. I don’t like can anyone tell me is there any effort in belief? Absolutely no effort. You just believe. Even a less effort than that, would be not to do anything at all. But God did it for us. We didn’t want it. We’re like, “Oh, we want some challenge.” “Fine. Here is the easiest challenge possible. Just believe.” And still, most of the people fail. I guess it’s too easy for them. I don’t know. People like difficult things. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with them. There’s something wrong with them. The Quran says there is a disease in their heart or in their mind. There’s definitely something wrong with them. Because imagine a creature has been created—which is the human being. God has created a creature and one of the easy features of that creature is to just believe. You know how you put some input, some words in the computer and it’s just going to take it as that. A computer can do that. Like it cannot believe, but the computer can sort of just take words for its value. Like you tell the computer, write hello and the computer will do it. It’s not that difficult. So here’s this creature; the easiest thing it can do—it can do more difficult things, but the easiest thing it can do, is believe. And it doesn’t, sometimes. there’s something wrong. If a person doesn’t believe there’s something wrong. There’s some disease in their heart or in their mind, they are literally crazy. But I don’t want to go there because they can call us crazy too they’ve been calling us crazy. So I don’t want to play that game, but literally they are crazy. Sorry for like going back to it. But yeah, there’s something wrong with them, there’s just something wrong with them. So the easiest thing—just believe. Just take the word for what it is. God is great. Just believe. No. That’s what they do. No. What do you mean? How hard can it be? No. Maybe he’s not. Maybe? That’s how they think. Imagine telling them there’s no other god except God. Just believe. That’s all you have to “Oh, they go into intricacies and stuff.”

Anyway, for those who have to do the contact prayer, let’s do the contact prayer. If you believe you will do the contact prayer. If you don’t believe you will not do the contact prayer when the time of the contact prayer comes.

Salam Alaikum. Peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director