By Emanuel Esh
Did you ever question what God would do on the Judgment
Day with the heathen who have never heard of Jesus? Would
a loving and merciful God condemn the heathen, who have
never had an opportunity to hear the saving gospel of Jesus
Christ, to an eternal, burning hellfire?
To those who have heard the gospel and stubbornly refuse
to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, we would agree
(according to the written Word of God)
are in danger of eternal punishment; and if they die without Christ, they
shall spend eternity without Christ.
But what about the heathen who have never heard?
Errors of Man’s Thinking
Many of God’s people, even His true evangelical people,
are losing their conviction about the lost condition of
the heathen. Many true Christians are not burdened about
the souls of the lost around them. They do not really believe
that souls are lost apart from Christ. An atheist once
said, “If I were to believe what you say is true about
an eternal punishment in hell for sin, then I would be
willing to crawl on broken glass to warn every person possible.”
To think that the heathen will somehow be saved outside
of the gospel of Christ is to believe in error. Nearly
all error begins with a false view of the state,
the need, and the danger of man. The basic problem is that people are thinking “above that which is written.”
The Bible declares man to be the enemy of God, dead in
trespasses and sins, condemned to an everlasting destruction,
and in need of a Savior. God has declared
in His Word that the “wages of sin is death,” and that He “will
by no means clear the guilty,” and again, “that without shedding of blood is no remission
[of sins].”
Let us face the facts. If man is not an enemy of God,
then he needs no reconciliation; if not a slave, he needs
no redemption; if not a sinner, he needs no Savior;
if not dead in sins, he needs no life; if not depraved, he needs no holiness;
if not polluted and filthy, he needs no cleansing; and if not guilty, he
needs no forgiveness.
Did God blunder in sending His only begotten Son to redeem
mankind who, although without God and without Christ, were
not without hope and are not in danger
of eternal hellfire? Must we charge Christ with the folly of leaving heaven
to come and die for persons not hopelessly lost, and those not altogether
cursed? Was Jesus mistaken or ignorant of some other way
when he gave the Great Commission
to His disciples to go and preach the gospel to all nations? To question
whether Christ is the one and only way to heaven is to
question the necessity of Christ
for my personal salvation.
Many Christians hold to the false hope that the heathen
are not lost because they have never heard the gospel.
It is said that a student once asked Charles Spurgeon
if he thought the heathen who had never heard the gospel
would be saved. He answered, “It is more a question
with me whether we who have had the gospel and fail to give it to those who
have it not, can be saved.”
If for the heathen the door to heaven were open to them
through ignorance, then it would indeed be folly to preach
to them the way of Christ.
Examining God’s Truth
We must stand on the Word of God and its plain teachings
on this subject. Let every Christian consider the truth
from God’s Word.
Dear Reader, stop, and before reading on, get your Bible
and follow along in the Word of God. Allow God to rivet
the truth about this matter deep in your
heart.
According to Psalm 9:17, who “will
be turned into hell”?
(“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all
the nations that forget God.”).
See for yourself the condition of the heathen in these
verses:
