However, I have the hardest time with an idea that many Christians hold which is that if you do not acknowledge (verbally, mentally) Christ as your savior within your life time, you are damned.
Why do they hold this idea?
Speaking of Jesus the Scriptures say:
Acts 4:12
12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Bracketed words mine).
John 3:36
36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
John 14:6
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Romans 10:8-15
8 But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.
13 For "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!"
When I think about a poor human being alone and dieing of starvation in some third world country, I can not imagine that just because they never fully acknowledged an acceptance of Jesus Christ (prayed "the prayer" or otherwise) that an all-knowing, all-loving God would have no mercy on them and they would be damned to hell.
This would only be a tragedy - and unjust - if they actually
wanted to know God and He withheld Himself from them. God makes a promise in His Word that if we seek Him with our whole hearts He will be found of us.
James 4:8
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Jeremiah 29:13
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Many are the stories I've heard over the years of people in remote places desiring to know God deeply to whom God has sent His messenger to fulfill that desire. The lengths to which God has gone in response to a person's genuine hunger to know Him in some instances is quite astonishing!
The reality is that, generally, human beings suppress the truth of God in their minds and hearts that they may live as they want rather than as He wants. Paul the apostle explains:
Romans 1:18-20
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse...
There are no little girls in third world countries, alone and dying, who yearn to know God but from whom He withholds a saving knowledge of Himself.
2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
From this and the other verses I've cited, we understand that God is not hiding Himself from anyone who would know Him. And He will do all that is necessary to reach with the gospel any who will respond positively to it.
I understand that sin is sin, and all sin is seen as equal; therefore a murderer's sin is supposedly the same as a small child's lie, but would my God really damn a little girl with a kind heart in a middle eastern country to hell because she grew up in the only faith that she knew?
Is this little girl sinless? Is she perfectly holy as God is? How kind is her heart if she is guilty of sin? Not kind enough for a perfectly holy God. And this is always the problem: As good and righteous as we may be, we are never sufficiently so for an absolutely holy God, which is why we so desperately need a Saviour.
Some have said to me, "if those children were saved regardless of their faith, what purpose would there be for Christian missionary?" I believe that there are many purposes for missionaries and bringing the knowledge of Christ to the world that may not know of him is one of them, but I still have this question that I can not surpass, regardless.
I admire the sympathetic nature out of which your questions arise. But sympathy untempered by truth can be destructive. If people can be saved by other means than the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross, then Christ's sacrifice for us has been in vain. He died for nothing. There is not one shred of evidence in Scripture, however, to support the notion that Jesus died for nothing, that some other way exists by which people can enter into relationship with their holy Creator. Those who would suggest to you that there is another way are preaching what the apostle Peter described as a "damnable heresy." Beware.
Peace.
