The sermon topic on Sunday was "What about Other Religions?" This Summer I've been looking at what God's Word has to say about popular topics of conversation among Christians. And one of the most popular questions involves "good" people who simply don't know Jesus Christ. Maybe they were born among Hindus in India or animists in some African nation. Will they go to Heaven anyway, despite the fact that they never trusted Jesus Christ?
I based this particular message on John 3. Despite the fact that Nicodemus was a devout Jew, a highly moral Pharisee, and a respected religious leader, Jesus told him he would need to start all over again from scratch in order to inherit eternal life. If Nicodemus wasn't good enough to merit Heaven without Jesus, who would be? I shared Paul's comments from Acts 4:12 that "there is no other name under Heaven given by which men may be saved."
It seemed like a pretty convincing message taken straight from the words of God. Then afterwards, one of our most respected members asked a question which I've heard many others reference over the years. "But I'd always thought that people would not be condemned if they never heard about Christ. In other words, if they never had the chance to say 'no,' are they still excluded?"
I replied with a smile, "Then why have we been sending missionaries all over the world for over a hundred years?" If people who have never heard about Christ are automatically saved, why do we send missionaries to evangelize them? If they reject the Gospel when they hear it, we have just changed their status from "saved in ignorance" to "condemned!"
If people living in spiritual ignorance are automatically saved, we should just call all our missionaries home and pray that people in the Middle East and Asia will forget everything they've heard! We should shut down our Christian TV and radio broadcasts. Every presentation of the Gospel is bringing new people under condemnation- people who were automatically saved just moments before because of their ignorance!
If Jesus believed that people living in ignorance were automatically saved, he should have never issued the Great Commission. Rather than telling us to go and make disciples, he should have said "Stay home and shut up!" Just keep it to yourself.
Of course, that's not what he said because that's not the way it is. There are only two highways in all of life- the broad, highly traveled interstate to destruction, and the small country road that leads to Life. Our job is to get as many men and women as possible to detour from that popular super highway, and walk with Jesus on the narrow road to life. That's why God sent his son- that all who believed might have eternal life. But as John 3 goes on to explain, "All who do not believe in him are condemned already."
It's not compassionate to rationalize why "lost" people might not be lost at all. You'd never take that chance with your own life or your own kids. Compassion requires that I tell as many people as possible the wonderful truth God has revealed to me.
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