"Lord, I didn't know!"

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

"At the name of JESUS every knee shall bow, of things in Heaven, things on the Earth, and things under the Earth, and and every tongue shall confess that JESUS CHRIST is LORD, to the glory of GOD the FATHER."

We as Christians all know that JESUS is the way to the paradise we long for. I however, have this question for the saints: What about those that never heard of the name of JESUS before? I'm not talking about those that heard and rejected HIM, I'm talking about those that LITERALLY never heard the GOSPEL or the name of JESUS CHRIST. I want to see exactly where the saints stand on this issue, for it has been a controversial one for a long time.

[Scott R. Newman]

Boy very sad, and the more reason why my work is definitely needed in creating awareness of us all to get involved in some way to evangelize the world of the unreached and unevangelized. And I believe most African Americans believe there is another way for those who are unevangelized and perish to gain heaven as to the real reason as to our collective lack of going to them with the Good News of Christ, instead of being under the cloud of hopelessness apart from Him. Just read this long response to those who believe there is another way other than Christ to gain entrance to heaven:

Are the Unevangelized Going to Hell?

Why should anyone go to Hell? First the sin of Adam, the head of the human race (Genesis 3), has been judicially laid at the feet of all his offspring. Romans 5:12 says “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (NIV). How that sin is transmitted is debated, physically or judicially. Although human genetic structure was probably altered in some way--the Bible says that we are all guilty with Adam’s guilt, even coming out of the womb (Psalm 51:5), which is the judgment of God. A Barna survey found that 74% of Americans reject the idea that they come into the world as sinners (“Americans Draw Theological Beliefs From Diverse Points of View,” 10/8/02, Barna Research Online).

Second, each of us sins individually. All have sinned and fallen short of God’s standards (Romans 3:23), and broken God’s law by sins of commission and omission. The Second Commandment is to love our neighbor as our self (Luke 10:27). The moment I try to selfishly use my neighbor, I break God’s command--a sin of commission. The Great Commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Luke 10:27). One day we’re going to love something more than God, or love will grow cold, if we haven’t otherwise fractured the Great Commandment by 6 PM. Then we sin by omission—not doing what we should do (possibly John Gerstner used these examples). Actually, nobody deserves to go to heaven (“the paradise of God” [Revelation 2:7] or the New Jerusalem described in Rev.21). The reason is God’s decision to punish sin, generically, not only with physical death (Genesis 3:3,19—the first death), but with the second death, described as the “lake of burning sulfur,” (Rev. 20:10), “eternal fire,” “raging fire” (Heb. 10: 27), darkness (Jude 7,13) and “torment” (Luke 16:23). Hell is an expression of God’s justice. We don’t have another chance: “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…” (Heb. 9:27). Once there, one cannot migrate to heaven (Luke 16:26). There is no reincarnation, or laborious life-long opportunity to improve upon the last earthly pilgrimage, until at last we’re released (moksha) into the godhead, as Hinduism and Buddhism teach. Why? Heb. 10:28 explains, “So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Salvation history isn’t cyclical, as reincarnation teaches, but linear, culminating with the Christian spending eternity with Christ, and non-Christians having their desire (many of them) to be away from Christ eternally. There is one sacrifice for sin, one judgment, one chance. Life is a one-way trip. We do not have to personally atone for sins by doing better, even if it were possible for a good deed to totally negate a bad deed (half of US adults believe we can be saved by good deeds--Barna 10/8/02). A Christian trusts the one sacrifice of the sinless Christ for all personal sin--past, present and future. Christ paid for that sin, which merit we receive by trusting the person of Christ for our salvation. The Bible teaches that we are saved by faith alone, plus nothing, since Christ’s atoning death was completely sufficient to cover and satisfy the justice of God. “If you confess with you mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9). Period. “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rom. 10:13). God generally uses human means to communicate this message of salvation. “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? …And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Rom. 10:14a, 15a).

God does use dreams and visions to convict the lost, if the testimony of many is believed. Of course, evangelists use technologies. Many of those evangelized reject Christ, trusting some other scheme to compensate for obvious or subtle personal sin. Some try doing “good” (this “good” is like a filthy rag, Isaiah 64:6). Others minimize sin or deny that there is a god to whom we will give account. Or they suppress thoughts of God. Those who do reject Jesus will not spend eternity in heaven (John 3:36; 12:48). We can’t get there by other religions or sincerity. Jesus made the way narrow when He said that none come to the Father apart from Him (John 14:6).

Christians who are orthodox agree up to this point. An estimated 15.4 million unevangelized people die each year (Todd Johnson “A Global Summary of World Evangelization, mid-2005” World Christian Database). These will have had no clear explanation of God’s offer of salvation through faith in Christ. What happens to them? The weight of scripture puts them on the way to perdition. Why? First, nature has already witnessed to them about God. The apostle Paul said that the godless and wicked suppress evidence of God’s “eternal power and divine nature” in creation (Rom. 1:20). They see brown earth and blue sky—not Creation. All of us without Christ are “godless” and our sin makes us “wicked” before God. We can, to a certain extent, know God through His creation (Rom. 1:21). So every unbeliever, not just the really wicked, sins against the knowledge of God found in nature—and is self-condemned. “Men are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20).

Second, we violate our own moral standards, regardless of how simple. These standards are exposed whenever we judge someone’s conduct. Eventually, if not before morning, we will judge someone’s conduct. At that precise point we condemn our self, since we commit that same sin precisely or in kind (Rom. 2:1). You judge a thief—you will steal or covet sometime. You lament a murderer, yet you have hated someone--the moral equivalent (1 John 3:15). We condemn ourselves, regardless of ever seeing a missionary. God uses our own standards by which to judge us. The verdict: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else…” (Rom. 2:1). A prominent evangelical African American teacher is now saying that if someone doesn’t explicitly reject Jesus (such as a Muslim would have to do), God will judge them by another “dispensation” and that, without ever hearing of Christ, they will be saved. The reasoning is that if a person is seeking God, God is obligated to enable that person to find Him, since he who seeks, finds (Luke 11:10). Two problems arise. I get worried when I hear people teach that if you do “A,” God is “obligated” to do “B.” This is the line we hear about tithing. We cannot obligate God to do anything (see Rom. 11:35-36). Animism is about obligating the unseen world to do our bidding. God is too smart for us.

Second, God says that “There is no one who seeks God.” (Rom. 3:11).” If someone is found seeking God, it is because the Father is drawing that person to Christ (John 6:44), not because that person is seeking God all by herself. I believe in that case that God will somehow complete the good work begun (Phil. 1:6). There is no quicker way to anesthetize missions than to teach that people will go to heaven apart from personal faith in Christ.

Another entire layer upon this issue is predestination. “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” (Rom. 9:18). I believe predestination is part of the equation, but the God who elects (Rom. 9) is the same God who shows us that He uses human means--missionaries (Rom. 10). Workers are still needed to evangelize those “being saved” (Acts 2:47). Now if the unevangelized do go to hell—if they really do—how does that impact my life and resources? If the equivalent of over 42,000 people is going into eternal torment every night, how does this impact my spending priorities, and my church’s budget priorities? What percentage of income does your church give to promote cross-cultural evangelism? Does it matter to us that by mid-2007 there will be about 1,850,402,000 unevangelized persons on the planet—28% of the earth’s population (David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, “Missiometrics 2007,” Int’l Bulletin of Missionary Research, Jan. 2007, p. 32). Taking care of our own neighborhood isn’t enough. We aren’t to stay in Jerusalem. Our finish line isn’t a packed and prosperous church or collecting our first Social Security check. It’s to complete all the work God has given us personally to do. Our mandate goes to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8: Matt. 28:18-20). Jesus, confronting this human harvest, told us to pray to God to thrust out laborers into the harvest field (Luke 10:2). If the unevangelized can be saved apart from Christ, as some otherwise orthodox Christian leaders and scholars tell us—Christ died needlessly. If the unevangelized could still reach heaven, D. James Kennedy facetiously suggests quickly bringing every missionary home, so none could hear, and all could be saved—the opposite of Jesus’ solution. It then becomes the responsibility of the Church to finance those the Father is sending, in a manner worthy of God (3 John 1:6). Are we doing personally and corporately what God wants us to do to evangelize as many as we can on the broad road to destruction (Matt. 7:13-14)? Indignation at the thought that the unevangelized will suffer hell is, I believe, higher morality than God’s, who plainly tells of their destination—the profoundest human tragedy, and reason to go.

[James Pierce]

Scott,

Great assumptions, but in sensitive case like this, Yehwah has the definite answer.

[Scott R. Newman]

Who's assuming? I do believe I gave scriptural and biblical answers that the torah and the gospels as well as the epistles speak about, why the book of Action called Acts was very instrumental in spreading the Gospel to those where Christ name was not yet known even to their ultimate deaths they were obedient to Christ's mandate to "Go Ye Therefore"...If not let no one evangelize anyone if they and we all can gain entrance to eternal life with Yeshua. Don't fool yourself...The same reason we live and are on the earth is the same reason Yeshua came to ...Seek and to Save that which is lost, which is everyone.... The Great Commission must be fulfilled in order to usher in His second coming as well. I have no opinion of my own. Scott Newman died to self long ago.......

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

we die daily

[Scott R. Newman]

You once again evading the question.....We who are in Christ are to die daily. I'm not speaking about those who are in the knowledge and accept Christ or reject Him as Lord. I'm only speaking of the 42,000 people in the unevangelized world who has physically died and never knew of the only name that has the power and authority to redeem them from the death penalty of their sins.....Heaven or Hell? (third time asked)

[Scott R. Newman]

If we are truly dying daily this is what those who think their dying from themselves should sound like:

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

Scott what scripture did you give that before the 2nd Coming everyone will have heard the gospel?

[Scott R. Newman]

its the scripture that Rev. Luckett mentioned that is mostly never preached, so you may not be aware of..Matthew 24:14 that the end of this age will come. Lets look at the whole chapter

Mat 24:1 And Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way; and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple.
Mat 24:2 But he answered and said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Mat 24:3 And as he sat on the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray.
Mat 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet.
Mat 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places.
Mat 24:8 But all these things are the beginning of travail.
Mat 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name's sake.
Mat 24:10 And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another.
Mat 24:11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray.
Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold.
Mat 24:13 But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.

[Jerome Cooper]

There still isn't a reason because in the book of Roman(chapter 1 or 2) it talks about by way of an individual concious/soul they know to acknowledge him by way of the creation.......WILL EXPOUND MORE WHEN I HAVE THE SPECIFIC SCRIPTURES AT HAND.....

[Scott R. Newman]

Your material is inaccurate, the Gospel is not going everywhere, the stats beg to differ. Its going, but not everywhere. It will go everywhere, but at this point and day there are still millions who have no bible in their langauge and no witness to share the love of Christ to them.

[Scott R. Newman]

Rev. that is speaking of what must take place before Christ's second coming and through the many who are truly dead to self who are being obedient and sacrificing their lives and giving up this way of life who are facilitating Christ's return by engaging the unengaged because of their deep love of Christ. I'm speaking now which very few have answered as to what happens to those 42,000 people who died today who never heard of the gospel and good news of Christ? (4th time)

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

Rev. Lucket the word nations comes from the word ethnicity(meaning people) not the world. I do believe that all people will have an opportunity, but all will not take it. The signs of the 2nd coming can be closely watch by the political happenings in the Eastern world