What About Those Who’ve Never Heard the Gospel? Will God Condemn Them to Hell, Too? (conclusion)

It’s the Lord’s purpose that this evidence of His existence (Romans 1:19-20) be a means of drawing men and women to search after Him. (Acts 17:26-27)

On this path of searching for God (Jeremiah 29:13), the Lord has it set up that His redemption plan in Jesus Christ be discovered. (John 3:16)

And I believe that anyone, no matter who they are and where they live ~ even if it’s an unknown people group on an uncharted island somewhere ~ I believe that anyone who truly has a heart searching after God will do just that. He or she will discover the Lord’s redemption plan…

The missionary story’s told of God moving on a man in an unknown tribe to venture four days to a tavern to get a pencil and tablet. The man kept saying to the Lord, “But I can’t write.” God said, “That doesn’t matter. Do it anyway.”

The man finally returned home and the Lord told him to draw. Not being able to draw either, the man did what God said. Eventually his picture was of the Savior on the cross. And the Lord had extraordinarily gotten His redemption plan to a man that was open to Him.

Later, someone came along and led the man to Christ.

If you really want to know who the Lord is and you demonstrate it by searching for Him, He’ll make sure you get a chance to. (James 4:8a) I really believe that.

And the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10:1-48 goes further to confirm it.

Cornelius was a man who was very religious. He feared God, prayed to Him continually and often helped others in need. (Acts 10:2)

But that’s as far as Cornelius’ religion went. For you see, he had yet to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And he couldn’t believe in Him because he hadn’t even heard of Him at that point.

But God saw Cornelius’ heart. The Lord saw that it was one truly searching after Him. (Acts 10:4b) So He commanded an angel to visit Cornelius in a vision. (Acts 10:3) And this angel told Cornelius to send for one named Peter (Acts 10:5) because Peter had a message for him to hear.

And Peter’s message, in essence, was that God was drawing near to Cornelius because Cornelius was drawing near to God. When Peter finally showed up at Cornelius’ house, he shared his message with him. (Acts 10:36-48) Peter told Cornelius about Christ and Cornelius got saved.

So what about those who have never heard the gospel? Will God condemn them to hell, too? Well, the answer is that it’s likely that there won’t be anyone that hasn’t been given a chance to hear. And even if there is, the Lord is fair. People can surely trust Him to make a perfect judgment on whatever case He considers.

(To read the beginning of this post, click here.)