My final on this LOOONG topic. 

So, let’s get into the heart of the question.  Remember when we dug into John 16:7-11 it told us that the Counselor will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.  Upon further study we need to ask ourselves a question.  Why should the ‘Spirit’ go all over the world working to give the good news of the gospel if we don’t need to make a decision before we die?  Why, waste time and energy when it could be done all at once in heaven? More importantly, why the need for Jesus to even come?

Jesus spoke many times on hell.  Why?  There is a very interesting statement that Jesus spoke on the ‘Sermon on the Mount’.  He spoke that few would get to heaven and many would go to hell.  In Matthew 7:13-14 he said, ‘Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.’

If ‘good people’ make it to heaven and not hell, why didn’t Jesus say that?  If we all go to a ‘learning ground’ as Mormons believe or to ‘purgatory’ as Catholics believe; once we die and ‘many’ eventually get to heaven and not hell, then why did Jesus say it backwards?  Or in other words, LIE.  Why did he specifically say that ‘few’ were going to life and ‘many’ were going to destruction?  The Greek word for ‘destruction’ is apoleia which means: destruction, ruin, waste or perish.  Another scripture which uses the word apoleia  is used in Revelation 17:8 which says, ‘The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction.’

Could it be that Jesus was speaking exactly what he meant and that many would go to hell and few would go to heaven?  This is not God being unfair, but man distorting scripture and turning it into something they can achieve.  Like I said, every world religion (even some ‘Christian’ denominations) believes that ‘works’ is involved to gain salvation.  That would be a majority or ‘many’.  While on the other hand, born again Christians who know they could never do anything good enough and rely completely on Christ for their salvation, are a definite minority, ‘few’.

This is hard for many to hear.  Before I was a Christian, I did not want to hear any type of ‘truth’ that interfered with what I believed, but bringing out scripture and asking many questions in a loving way will hopefully get them thinking (maybe not right then, but later) or start a nice dialog of explaining why Jesus is our only hope.  The finality and narrowness of Scripture offends many, but Jesus did say to enter through the ‘narrow’ gate.  Jesus did not mince words when it came to the finality of death.  Jesus said in Luke 11:23 ‘He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.’  We have many religions that differ with Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14, so according to Luke 11:23 they are against Him.  Unfortunately many in false religions or teachings do not realize that they are against Jesus.  We need to lovingly show them this.  Truth is always narrow.  But, anything besides the truth is always… false.

It is interesting because right after Jesus tells the people that finding ‘life’ is narrow and going to ‘destruction’ is broad or wide; He immediately tells them and us as we read Matthew 7:15-27 to ‘watch out for false prophets’.

The next question would be for those who do not believe that we need to make our eternal decisions before we die… ‘why would he warn us about false prophets if we will learn the ‘truth’ once we die’?  And further more, why didn’t He reassure us, that even if we follow false teachings, we will hear the truth when we die?  Jesus says, in Matthew 7:22-23, Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Those are hefty words for those who say they know Jesus.  What we see here is that ‘many’ may say that they know the ‘true’ Jesus, but they really did not.  This proving once again that ‘truth’ is very important no matter what.  Another thing I notice, that I might ask is, ‘why did Jesus say away from me?’  Why did He not say… ‘Away from me, until you learn the truth’?  We see a defining point for MANY.  In fact we see confusion from the ‘MANY’.  They thought they knew the true Jesus.  We have many teachings on Jesus.  We have the new age version of ‘Christ consciousness’.  We have the Jesus of Mormon’s ~ which is not only a created being but also Lucifer’s half brother.  Many believe that Jesus was a good teacher, Islam believes He was a good prophet, but only Christians believe that He is the Creator; God with us – Emmanuel; the Glorious Savior of all mankind, in other words God!  These are some major differences.  We can not all be right. So what and who we believe in is vitally important!  Universal truth comes from God and cannot be subjective truth, or opinion by experience.  We can’t go by feelings when it comes to eternal matters, we must go by what God has said!  The Bible becomes vital in your witnessing.  It is the lifeline!

In Matthew 7:22-23 when Jesus says he never knew them; that means all those prayers sent to ‘their Jesus’ was not going to the ‘true Jesus’.  Jesus already came and declared the truth, there are no new teachings that are needed.  We have the complete truth in the Bible.  We are warned by Paul in  2 Corinthians 11:4 to watch out for another Jesus, a different spirit and another gospel.  In fact all the way down to verse 15 Paul warns us about false Apostles.  Verses 14 and 15 also tells us of Satan masquerading as an angel of light.  In other words, Paul does not say that what someone (Joseph Smith)saw was not true, but that the message sent, if contradictory or different from what the original apostles (eye witnesses to Jesus) were proclaiming and teaching or what Jesus himself spoke, then to not follow them.  In fact in verse 3 Paul says that he is ‘afraid’ that just as Eve was deceived, so will others be deceived by the cunning serpent and be led astray from the pure Jesus.  

Aren’t these great things to get an unbeliever to ponder.  And because we believe the whole Bible, nothing it says can go against what we believe.  What we are finding is that this ‘hard’ question posed to us… is something we can explain with Scripture and then pose other questions to the unbeliever, encouraging them to reason through scripture and praying that the Holy Spirit would open their heart to this truth!!  How exciting, but I’m not finished.

What we find is that people do not want to talk or think about hell.  In fact many don’t even believe there is a hell and others wave their hand of it, saying that not many will go there.  In light of Scripture we have been pouring through, they should begin to question.  The next scripture is powerful.  I remember showing it to my sister once and I could see her get uncomfortable and read through it as though she had never seen it before.

The verse is Luke 16:19-31.  We have heard some speak that Jesus was speaking a parable.  In fact that might be an excuse that the unbeliever brings to you.  I disagree.  Jesus was very specific as far as naming the name of Lazarus and also naming true people from history.  We don’t see this in other parables… it was always a ‘man, women, father’ and so forth.  We see ‘common nouns’ being used in all other parables and not ‘Proper nouns’ like in Luke 16: 19-3.  There are many things we learn about hell from this description, that Jesus gave us. First, the ‘crime’ that sent the ‘rich man’ to hell was being rich, greedy, and maybe mean.  Wow, does that fit today’s standard of who’s going to heaven or hell?  Today many tout the ‘good’ go to heaven and only evil murderers will go to hell.  In fact, many work and spend their lives trying to acquire wealth!  In, I would imagine, the same way that the ‘rich man’ did.  We see that God’s view of good and our view are polar opposites.  Jesus said, ‘No one is good – except God alone’ Luke 18:19.  It is also interesting that when the rich man died and was buried, the next words are… ‘in hell (or hades)’ verse 23.  This man sees, talks, remembers, can taste and feel the agony and terrible reality of hell.  He is not crying to God to save him, does not say ‘can’t wait until I do a million ‘hail Mary’s’ to get out of here’ – or – even ‘Boy, am I ready for my missionary to come and tell me the ‘real’ truth so I can get out of here’ -or- ‘can’t wait to be reincarnated into a butterfly.’  No, he knows this is final.  Abraham even explains that no one can cross back and forth through a chasm that is placed there. Sorry, no missionaries or anything else~ this is final!  The rich man does know that he doesn’t want his family to come to hell.  He asks that someone from the dead should warn his family.  Abraham explains that it won’t help.  God has already sent the truth.  Through the gospel being proclaimed, but more importantly the Holy Spirit opening the heart of the individual and impressing upon them the truth of the real Jesus and what He has done for them.

Death does not bring about ones chance to change – it only solidifies what they have already chosen to believe.

So, if you ever get asked this question, we know that God is a God of love and He is just and fair.  We know that He knows the hearts of all people and will know exactly what to do.  And if the person is using it to trap you, you have those answers and then scripture and questions to pose to them.  I know that what I’ve brought up only scratched the surface, but hopefully this will help for any of you who have run across this same question. 

I wanted to take a moment and personally say a 'thank you' to all missionaries who do go out into the unknown and witness for Christ!!!  What a great calling you have.  So many martyr's have lost there lives throughout history because of their willingness to do what God has called them to do.  My children and I read through the 'Jesus Freak II' book last year.  It was an absolute blessing to be able to hear these stories and discuss the act of selflessness with my children.  I do pray that God will call at least one to be a missionary.  If not, I pray that they would realize what a great witness that they can be where ever God takes or places them.

But again, I want to say that you missionaries that do 'go out' are thought of and prayed for!  Great is yor faithfullness and sacrifice!   May we (as a body of believers) learn and take these extraordinary virtues with us as we watch you!

John 15:13-17 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last.  Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  This is my command: Love each other.

I thought I would post a quick overview of the last three blogs dealing with the topic of witnessing to those who pose the question, ‘what about those who have never even heard of Jesus before they die?’  I guess that I should first say, that some people may genuinely ask this question and some may be trying to trap you (which was the case my husband and I experienced).  Either way, here is a brief overview as to soem key points you should dig the Scriptures for, when you witness. (or read over my previous blogs dealing with this and note Scripture, cross reference and find additional scripture)

1.       God is fair and does no wrong

2.       God is loving and cares for us

3.       God knows what he is doing  (He has figured out when you would be born in HIS story and where you would be born, along with every other person in history)

4.       He shows NO favoritism

5.       He wants no one to perish

6.       If anyone seeks Him they WILL find Him

7.       Holy Spirit convicts the WORLD of sin, righteousness and judgment

8.       There is testimony of those ‘far off tribes’ who already were taught of a tri-une God, or were told of a white man (missionary) who would come and tell the gospel,  and many other interesting stories (proving God was not forgetting these precious people in isolated tribes!!)

My next blog will finish this question up.  I will be showing scripture that we need to put our faith in Jesus before we die.  Like I said before, this is the heart of the question, for some of the people you may talk to.  (Like it was with my sister and brother-in-law, who are Mormons.)  They believe that there is a ‘learning area’ for all of us who are not Mormons – to learn the truth.  This way we won’t go to hell.  They believe that not many will be in hell.  When my husband or I show great narrowness, with Christianity, it offends them and they have tried over and over to show, in a way, how unfair or narrow our belief is and how much better their belief is, because in a way it leaves an ‘out’ for those who have never heard of Jesus.

The conversation my husband had went something like this:

                B-I-L: So, you believe that Jesus is the only way for people to go to heaven?

                HUSBAND: yes

                B-I-L: Well, what about those who have never heard of Jesus and die?

My husband gave a response trying to explain that we need Christ, and vaguely said something like, ‘I believe that God is fair and makes the gospel known to those who will accept Him’.  My husbands response was never good enough and he did not have Scripture off the top of his head.  So, this question was asked over and over and over again.  While my husband answered in the same way, over and over and over again.

It was evident that the response was not making sense to my b-i-l and he believed that he had trapped my husband.  My husband finally said, look you believe what you do and I believe what I do, we are only going to keep going in a circle, so let’s just end this conversation.

It may never come up again.  But, I wanted to be prepared if God brings about the conversation again.  Also, I know that God brought about the truth to my sister and brother-in-law.  The Holy Spirit will reveal truth to them, when their hearts are ready.

For those who wanted more of a ‘list’ on what to say when we witness to someone posing these types of questions; I hope the ‘above’ list helped.  I do have one more blog to bring a conclusion to this so, you’re list is not complete yet. 

Join me for the next blog…

Again, anyone who has a question or comment, I‘d love to hear from you!!

OK we've established that God is compassionate and full of wisdom. How about the gospel being solely on man's shoulder's.  Is this true?  Not from what I read in scripture.  Is man a prominent instrument that God uses... you bet, but not the only way of bringing about salvation!  Do I think we should stop spreading the 'good news' and sending missionaries out?  No way, in fact our family has made the choice to be personally responsible for some missionaries and have been for a few years now! My family and I feel it is very important and scriptural to help send out those who have been called by God.  Was it a commission that Jesus said for us to continue to do? Yes, yes and yes again!  Does that mean that every single person is called to go to the far reaches of the world? No.  Once the twelve apostles told the good news and thousands of people were saved, did each saved individual leave their home and occupation to further the spread of the gospel?  No.  Some did, but not all.  The apostles did not give guilt trips saying that each young believer needed to serve for a certain number of years as a missionary.  The apostles did not teach this type of doctrine because they were not God and did not know each man's personal walk with the Lord and what the Lord called each individual to do.  There are times when someone will get a prophetic word from God to send someone out~ like we saw with Saul's conversion and the message God gave Ananias to give to Saul.  Please remember that it was not just Ananius coming to Saul, but the Lord had already spoke to Saul, personally also.(Saul was not simply taking the word of a man!)

God is personally involved in each person and has placed each person in the exact spot they are to be!  So that is why I live in America right now.  That is why another person was born in Tibet.  Did he do this because He shows favortism?  No (See Acts 10:34 & Ephesians6:9)  Along with Romans 2:11 which states, 'For God does not show favortism.'   God did not say, ’I like Jennifer better than I like this person in Tibet; I know she will hear the gospel and ‘so and so’ born in Tibet won’t know how to reach me... yeah.’  In fact, He loves us all so much that He does not want anyone to be in hell.  He loves all His children, but He won't force them to believe and love Him or follow what He has said is 'truth'!  2 Peter 3:9... 'He is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.'  He wants us all to find salvation. How can that be if He places people in far off places that never hear of Jesus?  Isn't that God sentencing people to hell?  Well, we come across a few places in Scripture that sheds light on this very idea.  'For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men' Titus 2:11.  The word 'all' in Greek is pas, which means (this might shock some, but): all, any, every, the whole.  In other words, salvation has appeared to ALL!  How has the 'grace' of God appeared to all men?  Well, any way that He wants the message to be sent.  Remember that He is not willing that any would perish.  So He is going to make salvation or the 'need' for grace evident. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, 'He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.'

Romans 1:20 says, 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.'

Acts 17:26-27 says, 'From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them, and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.'

This scripture is so powerful in many ways.  We see that God is very, very personally involved in our lives and has taken great care to place us in a specific time and place so that we will seek him!!!  Jesus said, 'Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.' Matthew 7:7  He did not say, may find, but WILL find.

We see that the asker of this question only sees man as being the way to bring about salvation.  Yes, I'm not disagreeing that God does use man, but it is in every single instance that the Holy Spirit brings the understanding of eternal life.  The Counselor comes to each of us, the whole world, and helps us to realize that we need a Redeemer.

Jesus said, in John 16:7-8, 'But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away.  Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment:...'  Not only does Jesus tell us that it will be the Holy Spirit, the Counselor that convicts the world of sin, but also in regard to righteousness and judgment.  That sounds like the whole gospel message to me.  That we are sinful, we need to be righteous in order to stand before a holy God, otherwise we will face the same judgment that the 'prince of this world is already condemned to face' [see verses 9-11 of John 16] Also, in order for the Spirit to declare victory over judgment and the second death, Jesus had to die and defeat death, that is why Jesus said it was for our good that He was going away!!  So, when the great Counselor convicts the world, this would include the far reaches of India and the wild jungles of South America.  So here we see that the Holy Spirit makes known the FULL gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like a friend said,"God wants to bless us by using us to bring others to Him but He does not rely on us. I am so thankful that He doesn't because I know myself and how unfaithful and unreliable I can be. I am glad He loves me more than to leave my eternity in the hands of another fallible individual with the same sin nature as my own."

That is the whole point of grace, we have to humble ourselves to realize we can do nothing by way of salvation.  We may be the instrument He uses to help reach others with the gospel message, but the Spirit is the only one making what is being said, warm upon the heart and mind to gain 'eternal or holy' understanding.  God is so very beautiful and very literally in honor of ALL praise!

This very thing is true of my conversion and loving realization of the need for a Redeemer!  As I look back I can see about six months of time that the Holy Spirit was bringing about 'heavenly minded' instances and using individuals to plant seeds in my heart to the gospel.  It was the summer of 2002 and my friend invited me and my oldest son to a 'Bible Man' show (which is an action hero for Christian children).  My son and I enjoyed ourselves, but I couldn't remember any 'message' being said, except one thing.  We left, and I remember in the car asking her, "What did they mean about receiving Jesus?"  I can just imagine now, my friend gasping inside, but she coolly and calmly explained the gospel message. I said something like, 'oh' and didn't mention another word about it.  Do I remember what she said? Nope!  At that moment did I even understand that I really needed Jesus? No, I did not.  Yet here, she gave the message to me and I had no clue what she was talking about.  I was 25 years old and lived in America where 80%+ claim to be Christians.  Looking back now, I see the Holy Spirit was there and bringing a beginning in understanding heavenly things, although I was by no means there.  It was different things like that which got me thinking and the Holy Spirit continued to work on me until I stood up one morning in a church I had never gone to before and gave my life to Christ.  This is interesting too.  The pastor gave the gospel message and then an invitation to receive Jesus.  I don't remember the message, I don't remember the prayer.  The only thing I understood was I had a desire to find truth and accept it.  When I got done praying I felt different inside, but honestly I was still very confused.  I understood only that I needed God, not fully understanding why~ yet.  Many would wonder if this was a conversion then?  I do too.  I was realizing the need to seek and ask for truth and I trusted that God would give it to me (Matt. 7:7).  In the few weeks that followed I devoured and went head long into the Bible and listening to pastors on the radio and prayed and went to a Bible teaching church.  I must have prayed 10 or more times for God to save me that first month.  It was finally becoming clear and I was understanding my need for a Savior.  Was my conversion at that church with that prayer?  I don't think so... I did not fully understand, although I did have the faith that Christ was helping me realize ‘eternal things’ that I never even knew before, specifically my failings (sin) and standing before a Holy God one day, who expected this perfection.  I wanted to understand and God knew that I was honestly seeking Him.  He helped bring about understanding in His own time.

So when I read John 16:7-11 where Jesus tells us that the Counselor will come and 'convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment', I know that this scripture is true, because that is exactly what He did for me.

Can we expect any less for anyone in another town or another part of the country, or a different continent and so forth?  Remember God does not show favoritism and He wants all to come to repentence.

In Don Richardson's book 'Eternity in Their Hearts', comes from the scripture Ecclesiastes 3:11.  I do not have this book yet, but have heard many wonderful things.  Including this review from cristdot.org : Eternity in their Hearts: Startling Evidence of Belief in the One True God in Hundreds of Cultures Throughout the World (non-fiction), by Don Richardson, examines various cultures and their histories as well as the amazing testimonies of missionaries to show that God has not been inactive amongst unreached peoples: to the contrary, God has left many of these peoples with aspects of their culture pointing to the need for redemption.

Christ knows the hearts of all men.  When we witness to people who ask this question to us, we must realize that we can only speak truth to them.  I, in the last few blogs, have gone over questions to pose to them and Scripture that will help bring about truth, to any false teachings they are assuming or have been taught.  Ultimately, though, we have learned that it is the holy Spirit that is declaring and proclaming the truth to the hearts of ALL the World!!!  He will use us, but if they are not seeking the truth here in America, then it will not be any different speaking to someone in another country who is not seeking the truth either!

Next, we will look at the question: ‘Do we need to know Christ before we die, in order to go to heaven?’  The reason for this next topic, is that the person who is doubting and asking the question, what about the person who never hears the name of Jesus?’ most likely is under the assumption that salvation is not needed before we die~ hence the point to ask the question and trying to prove Christianity wrong.  This is really the heart answering the question.  Especially since the mindset and teachings of so many different religions is that ‘we have time to decide for or against Christ after we die.’  How many times have we heard, ‘God would not send a ‘good’ person to hell!’ ?  

I hope this all made sense!  Any comments, thoughts or questions feel free to comment!  This is definately a tough topic and one that can not be given a 5 minute answer. 

My last blog 'interesting question' was intended to get some think tanks going!  It is a great question that might come to you by a non believer.  What about the people who have never heard of Jesus and die? This happened to my husband and I with my sister and her husband, who are Mormons.  I couldn't help but notice his (my brother-in-law) relentlessness in asking this question over and over again.  Later I thought about that persistance in asking (never satisfied with the answer given) and realized that he believed that he had caught us shooting ourselves in the foot~ because if they (the people who have never heard) don't know Jesus before they die, then they go to hell.  How unfair is that?  Very.

Oh, what a great witnessing moment we had, if only I had dug into the root and heart of this question 'before' he ever asked!  But, God did not work it that way and so the last few months have got me digging into the Word and asking and finding answers that I never thought about before! God is so good.

My husband's answer never satisfied him and I realized it was because of some key views that He believes as compared to what born again believers ~ believe.  I also realized this fit with most other non believers and two ever growing views: 1.  That salvation is granted by man or the message of Christ being told to the world is strictly on man's shoulder  2. and no decision needs to be made before we die on eternal things (receiving Christ, mainly). 

There was another thing I noticed (here is the beginning exerpt of a paper that I typed up to share one day):

Discussion would be great.  I will continue to share a little bit more each blog of this important topic and question.  And we will dig deeper into the heart of the question, which gets more and more exciting!  Thanks to those in the last blog who gave a few ideas on other areas to explore and research!  Bring me more ;)

As Christians we get asked questions about Christianity. But, many times what we hear are the reasons people don't like Christianity and in some cases don't like Christians. The complaints are wide and varied, but most seem to be that we are hypocrits or that we are too arrogant (narrow), in thinking that we could know truth. But in the last year I've heard a more intelligent (if I can call it that) question being posed. What about those people who never hear the names of Jesus?

Wow! On the surface this seems like a great question.

The truth of the matter is that we do know that people in far off remote places have not heard the name of Jesus (or do we?). We are to tell the good news of Christ to all, but what about those souls who have never heard and died?

Well, first when we break down this question we see that those posing this concern are under the assumption that... 1. They are more compassionate than God 2. They are smarter than God and 3. The spreading of the gospel is on man's shoulder's alone. But what I find even deeper at the heart of the question is this ever growing subjective truth that no eternal decision must be made before we die. The impression this question poses, is... 'see Christianity is wrong because you are sentencing innocent people to hell, who have never heard the gospel.' So, I will touch on the 3 assumptions from this question, but then really deal with the heart of this question... eternal life and the need to make a choice now or later!!

I have written quite a few pages already (9 and counting-yikes), so that I can have a well thought out answer, dealing with all the, 'yeah, but' questions that stem from this question.  I was hoping for some insight from all of you and scripture to back it.  I will post some amazing things that God has shown. 

Why?... you may ask, the need to be so exhaustive.  Well, this question was posed by my sister and brother-in-law, who are both Mormon. I would like to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within!  Your insight is appreciated.