What Happens to Those Who Have Never Heard of Jesus?

[Applause] good evening it is good to have you with us tonight this wednesday night to open up god's word and do a little bible study and so hopefully you are prepared and your hearts are prepared to hear a message from the lord this evening as we study together tonight we're going to have a slight test though before we begin and uh just want to make sure you're prepared uh it has to do with memory and how good our memory is for those of us that have grown up singing this hymn all right so how many of you think you know amazing grace that's good hopefully so we're going to sing three verses of that tonight we are still waiting on our support team to be able to come in and look at our projector so we're hopeful sunday we can have that fixed and work for you but tonight i thought we would sing a song that is near and dear to many many hearts in here and online as well so let's stand together we're going to sing three verses of amazing grace and uh hopefully you can remember uh we'll test your memory on that so here we go amazing grace let's sing together [Music] amazing grace sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me i once was lost but now i am found twas blind but now i see twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears did that grace appear we are i first believed when we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun we've no last days to see god's praise than when we first let's pray together father thank you so much for this day and thank you for the great opportunity that you've given us to gather together and to open up your word and to study and to learn more about you and god to learn more about uh your attributes to learn more about who you are and in doing so father may that allow us to continually draw close to you anytime we get a chance to open your word father it's such a sweet and precious time and i pray that we don't just do it here on wednesday evenings and we don't just do it on sunday mornings but we commit ourselves to to reading and studying your word on a daily basis and in doing so father that continually helps us to develop that relationship with you and to help keep us on the the narrow path opposed to the war uh to what the world would have us be on so father help us as we study help us uh help our hearts be receptive and father may you always be honored and glorified in the name we pray amen you may be seated well i also welcome you to north lake baptist church on wednesday evening for wednesday night bible study good to see all the folks here in person and also to those who are joining online we're glad to know that you're there as well wow i heard we're going to have gremlins in the sound system now plus we got a storm on the way here for those of you so if the lights go out that's the reason if you have your bibles please open to romans romans chapter 2 is we'll study our question of the week this one here is a result of an earlier study that we did what happens after a christian dies so we did that one on august the 9th and then we've had several questions behind that for me to answer and i do appreciate your questions that helps me come up with more wednesday night study so feel free to email me or send a question in something that you always wondered about but we're afraid to ask and we'll try to work up a discussion about that tonight we're going to be talking about what happens to those who have never heard of jesus had several inquiries about that and of course earlier before this happened a number of occasions especially with people who were not believers they would ask the same question in a way that would question the fairness of god uh do you mean to tell me that faith in jesus christ the only way to heaven i said danny there are millions of good honest hard-working people who practice other faiths or who have no faith at all and do you mean that they're all going to hell well how can god be called good and loving and righteous and just with such unfair rules so anyway that was going to be our question for the week what happens to those who have never heard of jesus and of course on the blog our choices were are they saved are they lost and undecided thirty percent undecided so i've been told i need to remove unsure or undecided and force folks to make a choice one way or the other 64 percent said lost six percent said saved and again 30 undecided so maybe uh we'll come to a conclusion before the night's over anyway if you have your bibles open let's go ahead and read from romans chapter 2 beginning in verse 11 for there is no partiality with god for as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law and as many have sinned in the law will be judged by the law for it's not the hearers of the law or just in the sight of god but the doers of the law will be justified for when gentiles who do not have the law by nature do those things in the law these although not having the law are a law to themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them in the day when god will judge the secrets of men by jesus christ according to my gospel in other words paul's talking about the gospel of jesus christ that he preaches there you notice paul in that last sentence there mentions gospel and of course gospel means good news that jesus saves it is good news and especially when it's taught in the context of the bad news and the bad news is this that you see in chapter 3 verse 23 of romans that all human beings are sinners and according to chapter 6 verse 23 all sinners are condemned because of their sin and disobedience toward god and have been sentenced to endure the wrath of god which we read about also in romans chapter 2 verse 8 and 9 that wrath includes indignation wrath tribulation anguish for all eternity in a place called hell so human beings being as self-righteous as we are uh we begin to make exceptions about ourselves saying surely god isn't talking to me when he says all have sinned but paul spends the first three chapters of romans explaining that all means all means everybody and so he takes this on in a systematic way all of us are sinners all of us are in need of a savior in order to enter heaven and then paul under the general title of centers describes what i call three subcategories category one is what we'd call a heretic a heretic is someone who knows about god knows god's word god's will god's ways but who disagrees with god or deliberately chooses to disregard god's will or disobeys god's commandments and does as they please so heretic is somebody who is a rebel it's the sin of rebellion category number two is heathen heathen is someone who does not know god he doesn't know god's word god's will god's ways he's never heard of it they are irreligious uncivilized unenlightened they do as they please and the reason they do that is cause a sin of ignorance so so far we've got heretics heathen and the third category is a hypocrite anybody know anybody well i'm not going to get into that but a hypocrite is someone who knows about god knows god's word god's will is god's way pretend to obey the law or the word whenever people are watching but when they think nobody is watching they do as they please and that's called the sin of deception so again when he says all have sinned it means all all three of those categories so tonight we're going to look at the heathen group those who sin through ignorance these are people who don't have a bible people who have never heard of jesus and what happens to them at judgment are they lost are they saved do they go to heaven or do they go to hell and again those are frequently asked questions i've heard those throughout my ministry of course the short answer is found in romans chapter 2 and verse 12. for as many as have sinned without the law will perish without the law new living translation words it this way god will punish the gentiles in other words the unbelievers when they sin even though they have never had god's written law in other words what it's saying here is ignorance of the law is no excuse well not only is this true in the bible it's also true in society in georgia we have a law popularly called click it or ticket how many of you are familiar with that yeah for a number of years we've had that if you're driving or riding in a vehicle without a seat belt you'll be given a ticket and find this law has been mentioned in the news there have been some public service announcements about it also you'll find a few signs out on various highways about you need to be wearing your seat belt still the government does not feel the need to go house to house to make sure that everybody knows about this law no as a citizen of georgia as a citizen united states you have a responsibility to know the laws of the land and not only applies to seat belt laws but all other laws local state federal civil criminal tax laws building codes if you violate any of these laws and you're standing before a judge and you say but i didn't know is that a defense no you're begging for mercy it's your responsibility to know if you live in this land you have a responsibility to know what the laws of the land are so ignorance of the law is no excuse and of course we're thankful to god though that god is more merciful than human judges when it comes to this in verse 12 god explains that if they have never heard the ten commandments then this judgment will not be according to the ten commandments however according to verse 14 and 15 we understand that people will be judged by the light or the knowledge that they had so even if they had no copy of the scriptures or no church in their community they still have the light of creation we read about that in romans chapter 1 and verse 20 which is basically a reiteration of psalm 19. the heavens declare the glory of the lord uh it says uh you know the words of this creation have gone out to the ends of the earth so there's no excuse that people shouldn't realize that there is a creator just by simply looking at creation also he introduces the idea of the light of conscience even if you never had a bible you have a conscience we read about that in chapter 2 and verse 15. how do you know the difference between right and wrong most of us know the difference between right and wrong before we ever read the bible it just comes innately to us it's imprinted on our hearts there it says in the word of god how many of you folks in here tonight are watching us online can say that you've never sinned against your conscience you're fixing to do something and your conscious deep down inside your heart of heart says this is wrong and you say i always stop there no a lot of times we'll sinned against our own conscience well where'd the conscience come from came from the same god who made us so again you got the light of the conscience that's been imprinted in our hearts also god will judge us all according to the light that we have been given jesus said in luke chapter 12 and verse 47 and that servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself to do according to his will shall be meeting with many stripes but he who did not know yet committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few for everyone to whom much is given much shall be required and so there again you're going to be judged according to the light that you received how much did you know and what did you do with what you did know verse 11 tells us that god is fair god is impartial in judgment of course god is completely sovereign he can do whatever he wants to do he can save whoever he chooses to save but here in this verse it says he placed that limit on himself that he is not impartial in judgment he cannot be bribed he cannot be blackmailed he cannot be bought off verse 16 god's judgment will be just unlike human judges god knows our hearts not just our actions he knows our secret thoughts he knows our motives he knows the intents of our heart in verses 14 and 15 god will judge us according to that light god gives us creation so we're going to be immediately judged according to creation god gives us our conscience so we're going to be judged according to our conscience if we're given scriptures and god's going to judge us according to scripture if we're given the gospel then god's going to judge us according to what we did with the gospel and then it goes on in verse 16 that tells everybody is going to be judged by jesus christ we're also told in john chapter 5 verse 22 for the father judges no one but he has committed all judgment to the son that all should honor the son just as they honor the father think about that for a minute if god the father was a judge and he's perfectly qualified to do that he is sovereign god he created everything there is so he has a right to do that if he wants to but he has chosen to give it to the son and it's interesting that he does that because had he not had he just been the great spirit in the sky and we're standing before him and he begins to accuse us for the things that we did while down here on earth that were displeasing to him say what god you just don't understand you're a spirit you've been up above everything we live down here in this awful place called earth and you just don't understand well what we do when we're standing before the lord jesus christ can you tell him that he don't understand what it means to walk the dusty streets of palestine no he came down here became one of us yet without sin so he is the one that the father has chosen to do the judgment therefore verse 12 sinners regardless of their category whether you're a heretic a heathen or a hypocrite sinners who have not received forgiveness from jesus christ will perish that is they will die and they'll go to hell you say it means now danny do you mean even those who have never heard of jesus will die in their sins and the answer is yes and you may say well that's not fair well that's true that's not fair but a true statement is one that i heard a missionary a number of years ago say and it kind of stuck with me she said it's not fair that anyone should hear the gospel twice till everyone has heard it once but how many times do we sit and hear the gospel we hear it so often that we get bored with it when there's still people all around the world that's never heard it one time so is that fair i don't think so it's not fair that multiplied millions of people on earth have never heard of jesus but here comes the key question and that is whose fault is it whose fault is it that there's multiplied millions who have never heard of the gospel of jesus christ well verse 11 tells us it's not god's fault there is no unfairness there is no partiality with him in romans paul makes the case that god has done everything possible to reveal himself to mankind to reveal himself as a savior he's revealed himself in creation we read about that in romans chapter 1. romans chapter 2 he's revealed himself in our conscience romans chapter 2 the second part he's revealed himself to us in the history of israel he has revealed himself to us in the scriptures it says in romans 3. in romans 5 it tells he's revealed himself to us in the person of his son jesus christ in romans chapter 8 it tells us he's revealed himself to us in the person of the holy spirit so speaking of history though let's go back and look at some history first of all god revealed himself to adam and eve you remember that he used to go talk to them in the cool of the day he left to have those walks in the garden he walked with him you know and talked with him and tells him i am his own as the song says in the beginning do you realize every person in the world how many were there two all right everybody in the world at that time knew who god was so the question is is after a few generations virtually nobody knew who god was how did that happen how in the world you go from everybody in the world knowing about god three or four generations later everybody's acting like heathen don't know who god is no longer worshiping how does that happen well jesus tells us a little bit about that in luke chapter 17 he says we get busy he said we get busy eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and buying and selling and planting and building and we forget god we begin slipping down that slippery slope of sin and become so wicked that god end up having to destroy the earth with a flood it says by the time you get to genesis chapter 6. so we had this flood everybody drowned except for one family and then god revealed himself again to noah and when noah and his family got off the ark how many people in the world knew who god was when noah got off the ark and that was everybody in the world you realize everybody in the world knew who god was whenever they got off of the ark after the great flood but what happened in a few generations virtually nobody knew who he was and how's that happen well jesus says we get busy i think jesus said it this way eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and buying and selling and planting and building was making a living but in the middle of making a living we didn't have time to tell our family our own sons and daughters who jesus is and so they soon forgot about god and slipped down that slippery slope of sin so god takes another run at it with a man named abraham so god revealed himself again to abraham who told his son isaac who told his son jacob but in a few generations virtually nobody knew god well what happened well scriptures say they got busy eating and drinking and marrying and giving them marriage and buying and selling and planting and building and they soon forgot god and began slipping down that slippery slope called sin then god revealed himself again this time to moses at the burning bush in exodus chapter 19 verse 6 the lord revealed to moses that he was going to call the nation of israel to be a nation of prophets and priests they were going to be called to evangelize the world with the good news that jehovah saves but israel got too busy to fulfill their task why do you think they got that way well i don't know it says they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and buying and selling and planting and building and they soon forgot god and began slipping down that slippery slope of sin if you study the old testament israel's faithfulness reads like an ekg realize that one minute they're on fire for god next minute they're in the basement and he's having to punish them and then they have a revival and they get all fired up again and then what happens they get busy buying and selling and marrying and giving marriage and planting and building all this kind of stuff and they forget all about it again who keeps dropping the ball yeah it's us it's not the lord the lord keeps going out of his way to keep the light turned on and we keep shutting the light off so whose fault is that there's billions of lost people in the world today well it's certainly not god because he has shown himself in his word time after time to keep re-revealing himself to us now the reason they're heathened in the world today is because of heretics remember what we said a heretic is a heritage is somebody who knows about god god's word god's will god's ways but they disagree with god over something they deliberately choose to disregard god's will and they disobey god's commandments and do as they please it's called the sin of rebellion and sometimes it's rebellious parents like jesus said in luke chapter 17 too busy with the things of the world eating and drinking and marrying and giving to marriage and buying and selling and planting and building and making a living they just don't have time to pass the faith along to their children got plenty of good things to do but they didn't have time for the best thing and that's known as rebellion because god told us that's what parents are supposed to do is teach our children go back and read that in deuteronomy chapter six but sometimes it's not the parent sometimes it's rebellious children they reject the teaching of their godly father they forsake the god of their godly mother and they get busy eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and buying and selling and planting and building and making a living and then what they do is they plunge that next generation into spiritual darkness so why are there heathen in the world why are there people who have never seen a bible never heard of jesus it used to be a comic strip years ago when i was a little boy called pogo and he had a line that kind of laid to blame where it ought to be and he said we have met the enemy and he is us and so why we want to blame god because it's just not fair that people in the world who don't know jesus should die and go to hell we never move on to the next question is why are there people in the world that don't know who jesus is we never quite look at ourselves remember christianity is never more than one generation from extinction all you have to do to snuff out christianity and your family tree is to get too busy eating and drinking and marrying and giving your marriage and buying and selling and planting and building that's all just a little too busy to tell our kids tell her friends to tell her neighbors about jesus you know so god in his wisdom decided that since humans are the problem for the large numbers of heathen that are in the world and since humans are the problem for the unfair distribution of the gospel throughout the world he's decided to make us responsible for the solution now doesn't that make sense make the folks who cause the problem also be responsible for the solution that is for fixing things and so it's called evangelism it's called telling the good news it's called the great commission it's called what jesus said before he ascended into heaven go ye therefore and make disciples of the nations greek word their ethnic of the ethnic groups baptize them in the name of the father and the son the holy spirit teaching them to observe all things i've commanded you and lo i am with you always even until the end of the age and all the people said amen as a church of jesus christ as people who know jesus personally we have both the honor and the privilege to bring fairness to the world we make it fair when we tell people about jesus christ go back to romans chapter 1 and verse 14 and we're told that i paul the apostle said when he looks at it after realizing what jesus christ has done for him he said i am a debtor i am a debtor i have an obligation i have a duty to tell the people who do not know about jesus for us it's the same obligation we have the same obligation and duty to tell people from maryville to mongolia the good news that jesus saves well since you and i live here our mission field starts here and we need local missionaries whether or not you've been through a mission board whether or not you've been through seminary the lord calls us all to be missionaries we need missionaries here to serve in sunday school we need missionaries to serve here in awana we need missionaries to serve and vacation bible school and nursery and children's church and food pantry we need folks to visit their neighbors and invite people to come to jesus and be faithful followers of him amen yeah well y'all still with me and beyond our own community we also have a debt a responsibility to share the gospel around the world we're privileged to live in a time or at least we were before covet came along where the average american is able to get on an airplane and fly anywhere in the world and some people do that most time for vacation but if we can do it for vacation guess what we can do it also for evangelism to carry the gospel of jesus christ around the world and what did we read earlier to whom much is given much is required yeah the lord expects us to give back to him and so if you are able if you're financially physically whatever able to travel around the world then go for those who don't have the opportunity to travel the southern baptist convention has something called the cooperative program it's a missions offering that our church gives to we give a percentage of our offerings that go directly to cooperative program we also participate in the lottie moon christmas offering for international missions and the annie armstrong easter offering for the north american mission board uh the united states and canada and some of the territories uh so we give if we can't go we give so others can go now i've been a baptist most of my life and i've been a baptist long enough to know there's lots of southern baptists that are not true missionary baptists they don't really believe in giving to missions i've heard them say before they think we ought to take care of our own first if there's anything left over then we give that to foreign missions well if you read the book of romans and pay attention there's two things that you're going to learn from the book of romans concerning missions first of all is missions is a mandate it's a mandate it's not an option the lord did not say disgust going into the world and preaching the gospel what do you say go into the world and pray so it's a foregone conclusion it's a direct order from the lord it's a duty if we decide not to do missions guess what that makes us one of those heretics it means a rebel against god's plan for the world and uh and that's you know heretic is somebody who knows the father's will refuses to do it the second thing i would tell you to think about is as we look at romans and we explore this thing and realize that it's not god's fault that there are lost people in the world but it's our fault the second thing i'd say about missions is it is an investment in your family's future you say well how's that work well i think we need to for no other reason if you don't do it because you love the lord we still need to do missions because of your great grandchildren because they may need a missionary let me explain where did christianity in america come from europe does anybody check the stats on europe lately we've been gone a couple of hundred years from over there you've got germany the land of martin luther and the protestant reformation today in germany less than 13 percent of the people darken the door of a church anywhere france the land of john calvin today in france less than 11 percent of the population attend church anywhere a few years ago the georgia baptist mission board signed an agreement with france to try to start planting churches back over there in a country that used to send church planters over the water in order to plant churches here great britain or the united kingdom or whatever they want to call themselves today the land of wesley and whitfield earliest missionaries to america they were preaching revivals up and down the eastern seaboard also while we're talking about the united kingdom that's where the the home of william carey the father of modern missions today less than 10 percent attend church anywhere a few years ago the baptist union of great britain was asking the international mission board of southern baptist convention to come there and plant churches think about that england who sent missionaries all around the world is now asking for missionaries to come back because they've lost their country all those statistics meanwhile while we see our statistics going down as far as christianity goes go back to europe and muslims are gaining they're now up to six percent of germany nine percent of france six percent of the united kingdom the majority of the people over there though are nuns what's nuns that's people who express no religious faith whatsoever what happened to these nations in 200 300 years that changed them from being christian nations to being heathen nations well maybe somebody got too busy maybe they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and buying and selling and planting and building making a living i don't know maybe it was they didn't like their sunday school teacher maybe a style of music just wouldn't their spot of tea i didn't want to come back to church i just don't like that music that they're playing down there at the church maybe was a preacher you know every now and then that happens our preacher is too boring he preaches too long whatever it was whatever it was they didn't take time to pass their faith along to their children and that's how a nation becomes lost and now the few christians who are left over there in those nations that i just singled out are crying out as they're being choked down with humanists and atheists and muslims and they're saying come help us somebody send the light the nation that used to be the light sender becomes a nation that's crying for the light to come back could that ever happen here could that ever happen here north georgia who knows maybe another decade look at hall county gainesville maryville dahlonega see church dwindling down to less than 10 percent like europe imagine this church having a business meeting deciding whether we can afford to keep the lights on and somewhere in the world maybe the lord decided to move the revival as he has eastward around the world westward around the world to now the east maybe somewhere in asia half christian churches will be praying for all the lost in north georgia they'll be saying those folks don't have a bible they don't know about jesus their churches are no longer functioning those folks are going to spend eternity in hell and i can just hear them in their prayer meetings talking about it so it just don't seem fair that god could condemn those folks in north georgia who've never heard of jesus how does that happen well it happens when we get a little too busy with the things of earth and we forget that we've got a future in the kingdom of heaven and we take our eye off the ball by the way have you told anybody about jesus lately let's pray father i thank you for your word i thank you that uh in your foreknowledge you could look into the future knew that we would ask questions like this is what about those who have never heard and so you had the holy spirit inspire paul in the book of romans to go ahead and answer it for us in advance and help us to realize that we have met the enemy and he is us lord help us not to get so busy that we forget our main business and that is to make disciples of the nations lord forgive us for failing you give us courage and excitement to carry out your great commission in whatever setting that you have called us to be missionaries in whether it's here in our own hometown or whether you give us the ability to travel to other places in the world help us to remember that we're always on mission and we pray this in jesus name amen

Channel: Northlake Baptist Church

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Length: 34min 56sec (2096 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020