What Happens To People Who Have Never Heard About Christ?

[Standing Up]

What happens to people who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ preached in regards to salvation? More simply stated, if they have never heard the gospel presented how can they make a decision to accept or reject the gift of salvation?

How does God reveal Himself to these people if they've never had a chance to hear the gospel presented?

i.e. faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God

Also, say native indians or eskimos who died before a missionary came to preach to them or some remote tribe on another continent; how did they have a knowledge of God?

Scripture references are appreciated.

We know Christ is our Passover Lamb. Right?

That is a metaphor about the reality. Right?

There is a Passover in the second month for those 'on a long journey' or 'defiled by a dead body'. Right?

Why do you think this 'second month' metaphor is also 'provided'? What would it mean? Mere blah, blah, blah? Or, like the first one, is there not more?

 

[brevis]

Question about this -- do you think there is any benefit in praying for someone to be saved? Why or why not?

Yes because Grace can use any wholesome means

 

[Nova Scotian Boy]

Scripture does say that "if" we will pray and seek God's face and turn from our wicked ways, he will forgive us and heal our land.

It is certainly God's active will to forgive and heal us; it is his permitted will to allow us to remain in our sin "if" we will not pray and seek forgiveness.

As He knows beforehand "if" we will turn to Him in prayer, He certainly factors this into His perfect plan. And we are indeed called to pray in His perfect will, and must trust that our requests are subject to the larger picture that only He knows. Our prayers cannot bend God to our will. But Scripture is certainly clear that God's plan takes into account our prayers.




Prayers of petition and intercession are only important if they genuinely factor into God's predestined plan.

But you are most certainly correct in they should be a small part of our overall prayer life.

I do not have any huge issues with what you have jsut said, i can for the most part agree, and is in no way contradictory to the idea of predestination.

Calvin addresses the issue.

But wait a minute, you might be thinking: Why does God need us to tell him what we’re struggling with and what we need? Isn’t it redundant to inform God of what he already knows? Or is he asleep at the wheel, and we need to wake him up with our prayers? But this ignores the whole purpose of prayer that the Lord taught us. Prayer is not for God’s sake as much as it is for ours. God does want, and for good reason, that we give him his due by acknowledging him as the source of everything good—anything worth praying for. But even the benefits of doing that bounce right back to us! The more the early church fathers, for example, prayed for God’s mercy, the stronger they felt the urge to pray more. Or take Elijah, who, even after God had promised Ahab to send rain to end the drought, still fell to his knees and prayed desperately, and kept sending his servant to check a rain cloud (1 Kings 18:42). This wasn’t because he was losing faith in God’s promise, but because he knew he had to lay everything out before God to keep his faith from getting sloppy or half-hearted. Granted, even when we get lazy and lose sense of how empty we are, God stays awake, and watches out for us, and sometimes even helps out when we fail to ask for something. But still, we need to pray with all our might, for a few reasons. First, we pray so that our hearts are always on fire with the desire to seek, love, and serve God, and we get used to going to him as our anchor in the bumpy seas of life. Second, we pray so that our thoughts are always on display before God; there isn’t any time or chance for dark urges to creep in, but instead we learn to lay out every want we have in full view before our heavenly Father, and pour out every ounce of our longings to God alone. For another thing, we need to prepare ourselves to receive answers to prayer with a thankful heart; praying helps us remember that what we receive comes from God’s own hand. When we receive what we pray for, and know our prayer has been answered, we are drawn into even deeper thankfulness and awe of God’s care for us—and we appreciate so much more what we have been given by God. Finally, prayer helps form in us a constant awareness of God’s providence adapted to reach us in our weakness, as we learn that God not only promises to watch over us and provide for us, and invites us to approach his throne whenever we feel the need, but beyond that, God stretches his arms over us, not just nursing us with words but actually defending our cause. This is why, although God is never really asleep at the wheel, he often seems to be! In reality, he’s just inviting us deeper into conversation with him, even when we’d just as soon settle for a more superficial relationship, but he keeps prodding us to learn to shed our self-reliance and lean even more on him. It would be ridiculous, then, to try to avoid praying by figuring that God has more important matters to take care of, like running the universe, and can’t be bothered with our petty requests. But God says just the opposite in Psalm 145:18: he is “near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” Nor can we say that there’s no point in telling God what he already knows we need, since God is so generous that even though he knows what we need, he can make it appear to us that he’s actually answering our request! This is what we read in Psalm 34:15—a verse that is echoed in other passages in the Bible: “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.” This verse doesn’t take anything away from God’s perfect care for us, and yet it tells us to pray for things anyway, to keep our faith sharp. God’s eyes are open as he leads us blind people, and his ears are open, too, to hear our groans, in order to give us even more signs of his love for us. And so it’s true that “He who watches over Israel will not slumber or sleep,” even when it seems like God has checked out. Maybe he’s just trying to recapture our attention.

Institutes of The Christian Religion Book III, Chapter 20, Paragraph 3 By John Calvin

I believe that God's grace is necessary before one can come to faith -- God must initiate -- but that a person can choose to reject that grace and the gift of faith.

I think you equally have a problem with prayer as much as you would say that i do. If you are correct here the final act is up to man. Then why would you pray for someones salvation, God has no control or ability to answer your prayer. So if you believe you should pray for the lost, Is it not pointless to ask God to do something that he has no power ability to do?

 

[ChrisHolland619]

Reading these post, I am almost appalled that almost no scripture has been given to back the claims of said posters, but only used their own interpretation of the Word to give a claim.

Let's see what the Word of God says about those who have never heard of Christ:

"For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another" Romans 2: 12-15

Paul says that even those without the gospel still know right and wrong, it's written on their hearts. People have an internal need for Christ, all feel it, most ignore it and reject it, but it's still there.

It's our job as Christians to evangelize the world and get them to understand this desire they have, but ultimately it falls on US, the Christians, who did NOT reach them and help them along their journey to salvation in Christ. But they will suffer hellfire for all of eternity because they did not accept Christ.

 

[usexpat97]

Scripture is even more explicit in Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 33
7 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 8 When I say to the wicked, ‘You wicked person, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. 9 But if you do warn the wicked person to turn from their ways and they do not do so, they will die for their sin, though you yourself will be saved.