How about answering my other questions?
- Is Thich Nath Hanh, as well as all the Buddhist monks and lay people that follow his teachings or similar teachings, going to hell?
- How would you go about winning Thich Nath Hanh to Christ?
- How would you convert a Zen Master to Christ?
Hi
@TruthSeek3r
Friend, the first thing that any believer needs to come to grips with is that the salvation that God makes available to all of us, is not earned by good deeds. Yes, there are many, many, many people across the globe that, from a human perspective, do good things. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, build housing for the poor, help little old ladies across the street. But none of that is what God asks of us to gain His salvation. It is what God expects of us once we do come to know Him and love Him and understand that we're all part of His great creation, and trust the sacrifice of His Son. Please remember that Jesus gave us two laws to follow. We can't do either one separately apart from the other. We are to love God with all that is in us
AND we are to love others as ourselves. We aren't going to please Jesus by only keeping one of them.
So, the answer to your first question is that yes, apart from loving God with all of one's heart, soul and mind
AND loving others as ourselves, in God's sight, a person is not good. No matter how many people are fed, clothed and housed by their good works.
The man that you mention is only a man. No matter how big and grand and glorious you may hold that person to be in your estimation of men, again in God's sight, they are only another man. I personally will likely never have an avenue to preach the message of the good news of Jesus to that man, just as I will likely never have an opportunity to preach to many, many other millions of men and women across the globe. However, that man, and any person, will be won for Christ by the proclamation of the gospel, if he is to be saved at all. I think it is also a fairly clear point of the Scriptures that not all will be saved, but if your heart goes out to the man that you mention, then you need to find a way to open his eyes to Jesus.
So the answer to question number 2 is that someone needs to preach to him the gospel...and yet he still may not accept the gift of God and receive His salvation.
As for your final question. Someone who has set their heart and life goal to live according to a belief that is a lie, may not ever come to know the salvation that God affords to us through faith in His Son. But they would be converted, if it were possible, in the same way as explained in question number 2. We are all just people. People created by God. As we go through this life we make choices as to what we believe is the truth of spiritual things. In all of Scripture there has never been a time, shortly after Adam and Eve, that all people knew God or believed God. Jesus seemed to describe the way of God's salvation as being a way that few would find.
If you have a heart that is burdened for a particular individual to know God, then it should be your goal to try and reach that person. Pray for them. Write them a letter. Call them. But, let me caution you against thinking that because some person that you believe on the earth to be a good person likely isn't going to be saved, therefore God is not good,...is a bad position. As I have read through the Scriptures, it seems to me that God's word is true. He is building a priesthood of people, that He is culling from among all the people of the earth, who will love, believe and trust Him. He has made a way that those people, and only those people, will be given His gift of eternal life of peace and security and His everlasting provision and protection. Just as the parable of the wheat and the chaff explain. When the angels sort through all the people who have ever lived upon the earth, they will separate the wheat from the chaff. The wheat will be stored in God's storehouse and the chaff will be burned in the fire. Good deeds, while living upon the earth, is not the bellwether of 'who' will be put in God's storehouse. Faith and trust and love in and for God is what God is looking for in any of us.
God bless and may He richly bless you this New Year,
Ted
