Words of Jesus Christ in "Red"  One of the most common questions asked concerning Christianity is, "What about those who never hear of Jesus? You say that Jesus is the only way to God and Heaven. If this is so, then what about the ones who have never heard? Are they going to Hell?" We'll give you the simple answer, then we'll give you a more detailed answer. The simple answer is this: "No one ever dies without being given a chance to accept Jesus Christ as Savior". Now, here's the reason we believe that statement. God is Sovereign
Our God is sovereign in His power. There is nothing that He cannot do if He wills it done. When we think of "those who have never heard" we think of human agency in salvation. God does use human agency, missionaries, to spread the Gospel of Christ, but does this in any way limit or hinder His overwhelming power? Our Creator, who made the Heavens and the earth in six days, and stocked it with animals and plant life and sea life - what is beyond His grasp? "Your God is too small" if you assume that He is limited by man, or by what we consider the magnitude of the earth and its population. Man would take "six months" to travel to Mars, thousands of light years to travel to the nearest stars from our sun. But to God these are but specks of light, and earth but a speck of dust. If God wills that all men have a chance at salvation, He will certainly supply a way for all men to hear the Gospel. The Unlimited Atonement of Christ
The Scripture gives ample proof the Jesus Christ died on the Cross for "ALL" mankind, not just for a select few (see also 1 Tim 4:10; Titus 2:11; Heb 2:9; Eph 2:1; 2 Cor 5:19; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:2). He died for the sins of the "WHOLE" world. Now, let me ask you this: If God is sovereign, and if Christ died for the sins of the whole world, then don't you think He would give every person a chance at salvation through Christ? Can you see God up in Heaven saying to Jesus, "Ooops - that one died without getting a chance, Son. Sorry about that little bit of agony you suffered needlessly". If God wasn't going to insure that all men would get a chance at salvation through Christ, then it is certain that Jesus wouldn't have died for the sins of the whole world. If so, then the Father was needlessly cruel to His Son, which we cannot believe. Man's Will and God's Will Meets
It is the will of God that all men be saved. Now, we know that this is not going to happen, for Revelation 20:11-15 tells us that some will go into the Lake of Fire with the Devil and his angels. Hell was not created for man (Matthew 25:41), but for the fallen angels. God never made hell with man in mind, but earnestly desires that all people come to know Him through Christ. Since the Scripture clearly presents that God, who is sovereign, "desires" or wishes that all men be saved, and since God is sovereign and able to control all events, then we know that the only real thing that stands between man and salvation is "man himself". That is, by our own free will we can choose to either seek God or choose not to seek God. If we choose to seek God we will find Him if we "seek Him with all our heart and soul". "God watches" the unchurched heathen in every part of the world waiting for a sign that they are interested in knowing Him. He watches, and waits, and when they seek He provides a means of sending them the Gospel.
The witness of the Scripture tells us that, shortly after Jesus Christ formed His Church, the Church effectively "evangelized the whole known world". The Church Fathers wrote of mass evangelization in the first few centuries of the new Church. Pliny the Elder wrote letters that told of vast efforts of evangelization in the second century AD. In the sixth century AD there were great revivals of faith throughout China, and thousands came to know Christ or rejected Him to burn in hell. Justin Martyr wrote: "There is no people, either Greek or Jew ... among whom prayers of the crucified Christ are given to the Father". Eusebius the Jewish historian wrote "There were very many who carried on the work of the disciples in preaching the Gospel ... leaving their countries ... carry the Gospel to other regions and nations". It is certain that the ancient world was effectively evangelized, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ was spread throughout it. God so thoroughly evangelizes and spreads the Gospel of His Son that, during the Great Tribulation, He "raises up 144,000 Hebrew evangelists" to lead as many as will come to Christ (Revelation 7:4-17). These Hebrew evangelists are executed, martyred for their efforts, but this shows the "great lengths that God is willing to go" to to make sure that everyone has a chance at salvation in Christ. If They Seek, They Will Find The Lord has provided ample proof that He gives all an equal chance at salvation in more recent history. Here are numerous accounts I found just by typing "Gospel heard" into a search engine on the Internet. There are literally hundreds of others, all fully documented, both on the 'net and in your public library. A native in Dutch Guiana (now Surinam, South America) found Jesus Christ. Years before he heard of missionaries, Adiri received dreams and visions in which he was convicted of sin and apparently converted. Heaven and hell were revealed to him. Near death because of illness, One appeared to him announcing that he was the mediator between God and man, and telling Adiri to go to the missionaries for instruction. He went, and was saved. (The Missionary Review of the World, July, 1896: 519-523, referred to in Strong's Systematic Theology: 844). In 1795 an English diplomat received an usually friendly welcome from the Karen (Burma) people. Through an interpreter they asked if he was the "white brother" they had been expecting for countless generations. If he were, he would have with him "a book" that their forefathers had lost. It was written by "Y’wa", (notice the similarity to YAHWEH, the greatest name our Father took) the Supreme God, and it would free them from their oppressors. The diplomat shook his head. Burma was home to about 800,000 Karen people and living in perhaps a thousand of their villages were people they esteemed as prophets of the God they called "Y’wa". These special teachers kept reminding the people that the ways of the evil spirits that most of them followed were not the ways of "Y’wa" and that one day they must fully return to "Y’wa’s" ways. They rigorously opposed idolatry, and the Karen people refused to succumb to centuries of strong Buddhist influence. One of their hymns was: The omnipotent is Y’wa; him we have not believed.
Y’wa formed the world originally.
In 1816 a Muslim made contact with the Karen people. Upon questioning they discovered that he had a book he said was from God. The people were so interested that he gave it to them as a parting gift. For twelve years they venerated that book and kept constant vigil for the teacher who would one day give them understanding of the contents of the book. Finally the white man they had been expecting arrived, opened the book and found it to be Christian – the Book and Common Prayer and the Psalms. The missionary affirmed it was indeed a good book from God, who alone should be worshipped. The tribesman who had gained honor as custodian of the book surrendered his status and became a humble follower of Jesus, along with tens of thousands of his people. The Mbaka (in Africa) believed that the Creator revealed to their ancestors that He had sent His Son into the world to do something wonderful for all humanity. Their ancestors, the folklore continues, later turned from the truth about the Creator's Son and in time even forgot what He had achieved for humanity. Since then successive generations longed to know the truth about the Creator's Son. All that they could learn was that messengers, who would probably be white, would eventually come to restore the lost knowledge. One day those messengers arrived and the Mbaka embraced the Gospel. The Gedeo (of Ethiopia) were a half million strong tribe who believed in Magano, the benevolent, omnipotent, Creator of everything. Yet few prayed to Magano. They were far more concerned about trying to appease Sheit’an, an evil spirit. They felt they did not know Magano well enough to be free from this evil spirit. One day, however, a Gedeo man, Warrasa, prayed that Magano reveal himself to the Gedeo people. Then followed a vision in which he saw two white skinned strangers erect temporary shelters under a certain sycamore tree near Warrasa’s hometown, Dilla. Later they built more permanent shiny roofed structures. Warrasa had never seen either type of dwelling before. A voice told him that these men would bring a message from Magano. During the next eight years other Gedeo soothsayers prophesied that strangers would soon arrive with a message from Magano. At the end of 1948, missionaries Brunt and Cain planned to set up base far from Dilla but the political climate forced them to decide on Dilla. Two white men erected tents under that very sycamore tree Warrasa had seen in his vision. Events continued to unfold in accordance with the vision. Today there are tens of thousands of Gedeo Christians. "What happened among the Gedeo is by no means an isolated incident,’ writes Richardson. "Incredible as it seems, literally thousands of Christian missionaries down through history have been startled by exuberant welcome even among some of the earth's remotest peoples! Folk . . . anticipated the coming of message bearers for the true God almost as knowledgeably as if they had read about them in the morning news!" In the 1880’s, Pu Chan, a Wa (Burmese) tribesman, persuaded several thousand of his people to abandon headhunting and spirit appeasement. He said the true God was about to send the long-awaited ‘white brother with a copy of the lost book’ that had been part of their folk-lore from time immemorial. If the brother learnt that the Wa people were doing evil things, he might consider them unworthy of the true God's book. One morning Pu Chan readied a Wa pony, and told some of his disciples to follow it. He said that the previous night the true God had told him that at last the white brother was near. God would cause the pony to lead them to him. The pony started walking. Surely it would simply stop at the nearest stream. To the disciples’ amazement it kept going. On and on it went for about 200 miles over mountainous trails and down into the city of Kengtung, then turned into the gate of a mission compound and headed straight for a well. The disciples looked all around. No white man. No book. Hearing sounds in the well, they peered in. From the dry well a white face greeted them. Did he have a book from God? Yes! Before long about 10,000 Wa people had given their lives to Jesus. In southwest Africa, long before the arrival of missionaries, Cameroons were caught in a storm while fishing. When his canoe capsized, the chief was in a quandary as to whom he should cry for help. Reasoning that the god of the hills could not help, and that the evil spirit would not help, he prayed to the ‘Great Father’ to save him. Immediately his feet touched the beach. He was one of the few in the party who survived. He gathered his people together and recounted the story, concluding, ‘Now let all my people honor the Great Father, and let no one speak a word against him, for he can save us.’ Thereafter he became renowned as a man of peace, making every effort to prevent strife and bloodshed. His son related the story to missionary Alfred Saker, saying, ‘Why did you not come sooner? My father thirsted for the knowledge of God.’ (Missionary, Alfred Saker reported this in England in 1879)
So, "What of the heathen who never hear of Christ?". God resoundingly replies "This is an impossible and inaccurate question". If a man seeks God, He will find Christ. God said it, has proved it, and in our minds that settles it. Heathen who die heathen are those who had no desire for God in the first place. They heard or sensed the gentle call of God the Holy Spirit and ignored that call to follow their own path. Man can and does act independently of God, and this seals his fate - not some inability in God to carry a witness to the heathen.
But let us say this before we close: God is under no obligation to call, and call, and call again and again to Christ. Many heathen, far from the civilized world, have heeded the call of God and have found Jesus Christ as their Savior. Others in America hear the call on a daily basis - on radio, or television, or from a witness from a friend - and keep rejecting Christ. We are less concerned about the heathen in faraway places than we are about the arrogant heathen that America has spawned. We are concerned about the congregations in our great country that sit "idly playing with their toes or ruffling through a book or stare off into space day dreaming" while the Gospel message is being preached. God doesn't throw anyone into hell - "we walk into it stupidly" while staring off blindly and ignoring the Gospel message. We go wading in fire while we fight to the last breath defending our humanistic viewpoints and social gospels, our freedom from "religion being foisted on us in public places". God may call you more than once, that's true, because He loved you enough to die for you. But "don't fool yourself" into thinking He's obligated to knock you in the head and save you like He did the Apostle Paul. That was an exception, not the rule. Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and peace with God, period! Pay attention next time you're in Church, or next time you hear Christ preached - then give your heart and life to Him without delay. You may not get a chance to do so on your deathbed! 
 Send E-mail to Russ: webslave for Christ ( russ@jesuswept.com ) with questions or comments about this web site and it's content. Last modified: Thursday, December 05, 2002 |
