What About Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel of Christ?

What About Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel of Christ?

by | Feb 12, 2020 | Apologetics, Atheism, John Tarr

What about Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel or Christ?

I do not know about you but this this is a question that I have asked since I became a Christian. I know many others have asked the same thing but never really got a satisfactory answer.

Until now.

Dr. William Lane Craig, who is philosopher and theologian, has a short 5-minute video from Reasonable Faith that you can view at the bottom of this blog, but I will attempt to lay out his article in print here.

When Christians claim that Jesus is the only way to God, an objection is often raised: If Jesus is the only way to God, what about those who’ve never heard of Jesus? Is God unfair?

Are some people just unlucky – born at the wrong time and place in history?

 

They can’t possibly be saved … or can they?

What About Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel or Christ?
What About Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel or Christ?
What About Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel or Christ?

Is Jesus the only way of salvation? The only way to forgiveness? The only way to God?

Many people consider that Christ is the only way to God unacceptable and deeply offensive.

People ask what about those people that have never heard of the gospel or Jesus.

God is not unfair. The Bible says God wants all people to be saved.

Those that have not heard of Christ will not be judged on what they do not know but will be judged on what they do know.

What about those who have never heard of Christ know?

 

Two truths God has revealed to everyone everywhere.

 

1.) God Exists. In nature.

By observing the natural world around us.

 

2.) There is a Moral Law

Our conscience within us. Every one of us has a sense of right and wrong.

 

So those that have not heard of Christ can respond to the light they have been given through God (nature) and Moral Law (Conscience) if they turn to God for forgiveness and new life.

Just like people who lived prior to the time of Christ they can be saved through Christ even though they have not heard of Christ.

But what about people who don’t respond to God’s self-revelation through nature and conscience?

Granted, they freely separate themselves from God and God will not force them to believe if they do not want to.

But maybe they would have believed if only they had heard of Him?

Are they just victims of bad luck? Born at the wrong time and place in history?

According to the Bible, people are not born as a result of an accident, but that God decides where and when each person will live. So, it is possible that God so ordered the world anyone who would believe in Christ if they heard of Him, is born where he does hear about Him.

No one is lost through historical or geographical accident. Anyone who wants or would want to be saved will be saved.

Our eternal destiny truly lies in our own hands.

How about you?

“God made every nation of men… that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history… and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for Him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” Acts 17:26-27

 

What about Those Who Have Never Heard of the gospel or Christ?

A short 5-minute video from  Reasonable Faith

What About Those Who Have Never Heard of the Gospel or Christ?

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Two Measures Foolish: Foolish to God for we sin – Foolish to the world for the cross.

A Letter to A Friend

A Letter to A Friend

by | Jan 24, 2020 | A Man's Walk, Christian Thought

A Letter to A Friend

As I was praying and asking GOD to help me to be the father and man that everyone sees in me, but I don’t see myself most times; I was instructed to pray immediately for you.

I know hard times in my life even though now is not the time to get into the grizzly details of me as the person of yester-man: the person you wouldn’t want to know but was fun to party with.

Anyhow- the Lord sent word to you & me.

Be strong and courageous and do all you can to stand and fight with the weapons that I have given freely to you!!

Be strong and courageous because I AM THE LORD fights for you!

Before the battles have even begun…

…I knew what and where you’d be at this time and in the exact place where you are now! Don’t you remember that before your spirit took flesh that you and I agreed to this life and time that you’d have the free will I gave you!?

Stand and fight! Be strong and courageous because the battle has already been won!

There are no weapons formed against you that can prosper because you are MINE! I THE LORD fight before you and the battle is MINE!

Be the courageous warriors I have called you to be at the end of times! Shine the light you have been given through ME to all and stand! And before you’ve done everything in your power to stand-come and stand beside ME; with MY glory illuminating all things around you and me!

There is no hardship that is given to YOU without an escape; there is nothing that THE LORD gave my children that I know they can’t handle.

A Letter to A Friend

A Letter to A Friend

 

Just as you give your children certain tasks to learn; I also do for MY children. The difference is MY tests are always to bring your character to perfection, to make you the warrior you were meant to be. MY tests are of a deeper relation to get rid of earthly things that in the Heavenly Realm can’t or shouldn’t continue in your own life so you can be the spiritual gladiator you were meant to be!

You were meant for greatness and reflect the glory of my son to a dying and dead world. Do not allow yourself to become infected with the short-sighted world’s wisdom. It’s not from ME.

In the worst part of the storm, in the 11th hour of desperation, when the whole of the world melts away from you. when all other men’s hearts become like melted wax and all other strength perishes and doom seems imminent on all and every front that you turn to.

LOOK TO THE SKY FOR YOUR ANSWER AND REDEMPTION!!

I THE LORD will never leave you or forsake you!!

Seek ME continually, especially in your time of great peril, I always hear you because I THE LORD am carrying you through these times! You are MY son by adoption you are MINE!

I LOVE you son!

This message was given to me on the way to work as I was driving and in prayer for many things in my life and family and also for many of my brothers and sisters in the LORD.

I know this to be the truth for you because it was the truth from OUR FATHER, which also makes it equally pertinent to me and my own life!

Anything worthy of the truth stands equally for the speaker. If I don’t live what I speak then I am a hypocrite to the worst degree. These words were for me to be encouraged by as well.

We are well-loved by many people in our lives and most of all the MOST HIGH GOD! What a blessing to have trials that work us to perfection!

How easily we forget that this is only temporary, a condition for a while that we endure in a fleeting moment of our short lives!

GOD waits patiently for us to call, let us not let HIM down!

Your friend,

 

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A Letter to A Friend

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Seeing the Unseen

Seeing the Unseen

by | Jan 13, 2020 | Apologetics, Christian Thought

Seeing the Unseen

There are all kinds of people. And depending on your personal preferences you will find them to varying degrees desirable as a person or undesirable, meaning that you enjoy being around some people and hate being around others.

The vast number of our encounters with other people are neutral in that you don’t know them well enough to make any kind of realistic judgment about their personality or character. But of course, we are drawn to some people and repulsed by others, even before we get to know them.

I have a confession to make. God has shown to me that over the years I got much pleasure and enjoyment from using people. It’s a part of my sinful nature. I feel better about myself and I can add self-worth or greater value to myself if people like me. It’s a hidden motivation for some of us. We perform for approval. On the other hand, the purity of an Agape love has no such strings attached. You simply love another person or persons without selfish motivations.

This means you may love those you consider to be your inferior. Don’t deny it. All humans make this type of judgment. We size them up quickly by their socioeconomic status, education, intelligence, looks, grooming, race, social standing, history, personality, attitudes perceived, hygiene, physical shape, and achievements. We judge others before we have a chance to know much about them.

God, on the other hand…

…sees the heart, meaning he sees the whole person and every circumstance that made them the way they are. We are all sinful, broken people who have been raised by sinful, broken people, and I mean, every aspect of humans is broken even though many do a good job of hiding their sin and brokenness. We reflect God in that we were created in His image therefore we see much good, but the virus of sin has messed up our programming.

God sees the whole person and every circumstance that made them the way they are, and He takes that into account in His great mercy and compassion.

Imagine if it were impossible to hide the heart from other people. Imagine everyone on Earth walking around and looking physically on the outside exactly as the way they look on the inside. This is how God sees all of us. Nothing is hidden from Him and yet he loves us with infinite love.

 God sees your heart, your soul, every thought that has ever floated through your mind, the “real” you.

Seeing the Unseen

Seeing the Unseen

 

God is love and we use the word Agape to express this kind of love. Only God can love this way and His greatest expression of this love was in sending His Son to the Earth to save us from ourselves. We must receive Agape love from Him as we have no natural source from within ourselves.

Agape love can either the expressed in the freedom to love someone without knowing anything about them, the good, the bad, or the ugly, or it can be expressed in the love for someone that you see and know all too well. You know their capacity for evil and selfishness, even the hidden contained within, the secret actions or attitudes others may have never seen.

Jesus knows the very worst about you and also your capacity of the human heart for evil. This includes not loving others, passivity towards others. I believe that if we had been put into other people’s circumstances, we might have turned out far worse than they did. For example, just look at dogs. Dogs raised with discipline and love are a pleasure to be around. Dogs tortured and treated cruelly are a danger.

I believe that God…

…also judges each of these things and minds. An abused, unloved child doesn’t have the advantages you had. God sees this in His great mercy and love. He also sees that we were all born into sin, separated from Him and His glorious nature. He sees everything that happened to you, every circumstance, and He takes that into account.

But he also sees our sin nature’s effect on us. Our nature to rebel against Him, to be stubborn, to reject the honor that is rightfully His as Creator. We were born with the capacity to be our own God’s, to act as if we not only created ourselves but that we have enough sense to rule ourselves. This is laughable. We can see how man has ruled himself through the record of history. Man is seriously broken!

Only Jesus saves us from self-rule. He puts the order of things back into the balance He designed. He becomes rightful God to us, the way it was when He walked with Adam and Eve in the garden.

Jesus is the only way to subdue the rebellion of your heart.

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Two Measures Foolish are a Christian Apologetics group of writers that write from a Christian Perspective and Christian World View using the Bible as our core.

We all travel on an individual journey on this planet earth that God has put into motion from the day we were formed in our mothers’ body. We all have deep questions that need to be answered. Why are we here? Is this all there is?

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Best of All Possible Worlds?

Best of All Possible Worlds?

by | Nov 18, 2019 | Apologetics, Free Will, John Tarr

Best of All Possible Worlds?

This is one of those questions that you have to unpack and think about before answering. You may have to ask further questions to get a better handle on what is being asked.

Most people’s initial response is a resounding NO.

Or…

…O my God no, as if we are trying to convince God Himself with this half question half answer. How can life on this planet be the best of all worlds?

Sometimes this question can catch people dead in their tracks. Something seems off about it. Of course, this not the best of all worlds. What are you thinking? God could have done much better…

…Right??

The question was first asked by German Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in 1710 in an essay on the origin of evil or solving the problem of evil. He was trying to account for suffering and injustice that exists in the world. 

Leibniz used Christianity to back up the validity of his essay. He said: “Once we understood evil and good, it gives us the ability to produce the “greatest possible good” out of all the goodness. Evil fuels goodness, which leads to a perfect system.”

That may be true in part but unless God adds another ingredient into the mix, good and evil are not possible.

Best of All Possible Worlds?

Free Will

 

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines Free Will:

1.) Voluntary choice or decision.

2.) Freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.

So, if you add Free Will into the conversation everything changes.

Two words. 

Best of All Possible Worlds if There is Free Will?

God could have created a world without Free Will but then humans would have been like robots only doing what was required of them and never making decisions for themselves. Never freely interacting with the creator or each other.

What kind of life would that be?

Would that life be worth sharing anything with? Would that life be worth living? Would you be even aware of anything?

Let’s say you designed and built a beautiful fancy car and then decided to travel all over the country visiting landmarks. Sure, you drove this car to all these locations but were you really sharing this trip with it or was it just along for the ride (pun intended).

Did it tell you how much it enjoyed that beautiful sunset at the Grand Canyon? Or did you still feel alone and wishing another human just like yourself was there to share this site with.

Best of All Possible Worlds?

At the Core of Free Will is Chaos 

Disorder, disarray, confusion, mayhem, bedlam, madness, havoc, turmoil, upheaval, anarchy and lawlessness are just a few words that describe chaos.

Has history not shown that all those words describe the human condition?

When God the Father was discussing making humans with the Holy Spirit and the Son they must have thought it was worth the pain and suffering for the billions of humans that would have to live on this boot camp of life on planet earth but also what it was going to cost the three of them. 

The Son in the form of Jesus would have to be born, walk this life like all humans but then be tortured and murdered so that sin could be wrung out of Free Will. 

God the Father and the Holy Spirit had to turn their back on Jesus for a time as He incurred this pain. Maybe the first time ever. Of course, they knew they were going to have to endure the crucifixion from the foundations of this world. The pain all three must have experienced must have been beyond description.

God wants to share His kingdom and all His blessings with ALL of mankind for eternity but He is also a righteous and just God. He can not allow man and his sinful, rebellious nature into heaven. If He did heaven would turn into Hell in a heartbeat without God creating such a place.

All these angry souls…

…that have denied the work of Christ. Individuals that are selfish and have lived lives without a thought of another humans welfare through their life times. People only living for earthly profit and temporary gain. All these souls suddenly showing up in a location not of their choosing through their life times of breathing air.

It would be considered spiritual rape. Forcing them to be somewhere they do not want to be. They would be angry beyond all description. They would rebell in the worst way wanting to hurt other souls and God Himself for eternity. This is NOT the heaven I want any part of. Not the heaven I have laid up treasure for.      

Now when you ask the question with Free Will part of the equation “This the Best Possible of All Worlds?”, what will your answer be? 

With that last piece of information I think most people would have to say IT IS the best possible of all Worlds.

How could God have designed it any other way?

 

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Best of All Possible Worlds?

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Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

by | Nov 11, 2019 | Apologetics, Free Will, Paul Harvey

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

I like the idea of “Two Measures Foolish” especially as it comes to sharing what I am writing about in this article. For this is a topic that depending on where you are coming from many would say it is foolishness to either share or that the perspective at which I am going to share is foolish. 

Because this idea of God being good in the face of all the evil and maleficent behavior, we see daily seems foolish to the person who does not put their faith in God. 

Sharing my understanding of God and my relationship with Him has so very much shifted as I grow older and my life experiences have shown me how much I don’t know and how “foolish” I am in light of an ever-present, ever knowing and all-powerful deity.

I pray that my heart and mind are humble as I share my thoughts on how my free will and the evil intents of my heart brought me to an understanding that God is good in all that He does, and how this is displayed through His Sovereignty, Omnipotence, and Grace upon us all.  

I would like to start by defining my understanding of some key points, so the reader may understand what perspective I am coming from and be able to have a common ground as to my conclusions and beliefs for myself.

I will define ‘Free Will’, ‘Evil Intent of My Heart’, ‘Sovereignty’, ‘Omnipotence’, and ‘Grace’.

 

Let’s start with Free Will. 

As I unravel these concepts, I am going to abstain from dictionary definitions and share instead from my understanding of all these terms, which admittedly so have most likely come from Webster or Oxford, etc. 

Some may say that my will to choose freely is limited by my social, economic and genetic dispositions. And in most ways, I would agree especially to my genetic traits. Because I don’t believe in the adage that “I can do anything I set my mind to doing”.

I think that is a “Crock” and is damaging to the 5-foot-tall boy with no coordination and believes He can be the next NBA star. Or for the Girl with less than average IQ who wants to be a Brain Surgeon.

But within the limitations of the gifting and talents we bestow lies great latitude and freedom of how we choose to live our lives. And within this freedom also lies the great potential for goodness, complacency, and even evil. 

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1 

 

Evil Intent of My Heart

That leads straight into my second thought of the evil intent of my heart. Many people today and throughout time have with good intention tried to purport this concept that men are good. 

I find this concept to be both untrue from my own experience and potentially damning for the man who is seeking to find true meaning in life. I will look to my own experience as a father in explaining this. 

As beautiful and as charming and cute as my two daughters were at two years old, left to their own devices quite frankly they could be little demons. 

Just watch a group of toddlers at play and without adult supervision, you will see selfishness and narcissism at its peak if you watch long enough. 

In my own life, I have seen and know as the apostle Paul says in Romans 7:19 that the good thing I want to do I cannot carry out. I have seen this at times as a Son, Husband, Father, Friend, and Citizen. My thoughts and actions oftentimes don’t match the good desires of my heart. 

Instead, I can be selfish, narcissistic, an egomaniac, hateful, vengeful, deceitful and a host of other dark and destructive monstrous traits.

This is not to say goodness does not exist but as I will conclude at the end of this musing I do not see that goodness coming from within the heart of man, but instead from the goodness of an all-powerful and sovereign God, who by His grace can change us and give us a new heart once we come to accept our purpose and submit to our understanding of Him.

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

 

Sovereignty

What is sovereignty? As to government, A nation can govern or make choices under its authority and power. As we expand upon that idea as it relates to my understanding about God, who I believe to have all sovereignty and authority, it gives Him ultimate power over all creation. 

This in itself could be a scary thought especially if it comes from the premise that God is the big guy in the sky who is looking down upon us with judgment and retribution. 

Sadly, this is the way that many people look at God. No wonder so many is angry with Him in their own life’s situation. However, if you take the opposite position that God is good and loves us with an all-consuming and unconditional love, what a different perspective and outcome that puts upon our view of life and its meaning. 

Honestly, in my life, I have been on both sides of the fence. For many years I was angry with God and thought of him as an evil giant throwing his bolts of lightning at humanity and reveling in our discontent. But one day about 15 years ago I had had a revelation and life-changing experience when I came to understand that God is good and that in his goodness, he allows us to live within the freedom of our choices.  

Within those choices lies the potential for good as we submit to God’s love for us. You may ask what my revelation was?

That is a story, maybe even a book for another day. But let’s just say in my own life’s pain, disappointments, neglect, abandonment, and fear I had so many of the same questions that have been common to Man throughout time. 

Such as…

…What is the meaning of this life? Or how could a good God allow such wicked behavior to exist amongst His creation?

Why can’t I see, touch and feel God daily? These and so many other questions, that I must admit may never be fully answered with my finite mind, have become my revelation as I have come to faith and belief that the answers lie in a personal relationship with my Creator and the Creator of all things.

Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

Omnipotence

With that thought of an “Entity” that has the power to create and interact with “All Things” brings me to Omnipotence, or ultimate power and authority. WOW, another scary thought if we only define it or try to understand it within the framework of our limited understanding of creation and personal experiences. 

Most if not all of us, have seen power and authority both abused within government or family and personal relationships. This might lead us to say that any concept of an omnipotent being in itself is evil!

Coming from the framework of personal experience I too at one time had that same belief and understanding. But reframed in the thought or idea of an omnipotent being who is Pure, Holy, Righteous, and Justified, redefines the character and nature of an all-powerful and all-knowing God.

So how did these concepts and ideas frame my conclusion that ‘My Free Will and Evil intentions of my heart brought me to an understanding that God is good in all He does.’

You can find Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 2

 

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Free Will and God’s Goodness Part 1

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