Featured On a South Sea Island.....

Amen! And there is a huge amount of missionary work going on around the world that few Americans know or care about. Nowadays there are very few places in the world where missionaries have not been. I am reminded of a famous Chinese kung fu master I read about who left Taiwan and disappeared somewhere in Malaysia in answer to God's call. Then there was Sadhu Singar Singh, who left India years ago, entered Muslim lands and was never heard from again. God sent these men to preach to seeking souls.

I basically agree with this and the rest of your post, but at a minimum those after Adam and Eve all had to know about the coming Savior, the "seed of the woman," and put their faith in Him.

 

Hell is ternally being seperated from God, so all that is good/holy/right will be denied, so will be in [er[etually darkness, left to ourselves!

many sinners acted in this life like they wanted to not be bothered by god, and he honors their request!

 

Think the basic question on this :

Were all those after the fall still with real free will as Adam once had?

Were all of them judged and included in the fall, so spiritually dead to person and works of God in own natures?

 

I think both of these statements are true but irrelevant to the OP, which is about the present dispensation.

 

Without Reading the Other Comments ....

Let me add my understanding ....

God has place within all of us a moral standard. Meaning simply this, regarding whether they have heard or had available to them the Gospel message, innate within mankind is a moral standard, and it is that standard that all civilizations and cultures establish some kind of moral law by wich they live amongst each other.

Probably the best Scripture to apply to this is found in Romans 2:12-16 (TLB) which says, "He will punish sin wherever it is found. He will punish the heathen when they sin, even though they never had God’s written laws, for down in their hearts they know right from wrong (the innate moral standard). God’s laws are written within them; their own conscience accuses them, or sometimes excuses them. And God will punish the Jews for sinning because they have his written laws but don’t obey them. They know what is right but don’t do it. After all, salvation is not given to those who know what to do, unless they do it. The day will surely come when at God’s command Jesus Christ will judge the secret lives of everyone, their inmost thoughts and motives; this is all part of God’s great plan, which I proclaim."

Someone once said the Book of Romans is 16 chapters of pure doctrine for the church! It is the standard for which most churches and denominations build their creeds around!

I think Paul answers you question without challenge, and I know that whenever this question is asked of me by, let's say an atheist or agnostic kind of person, this is my boilerplate answer!

Some other Scripture to support the moral standard judgement clause are:

“I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34–35, KJV).

Naaman, the Syrian, was granted peace with God because he exercised faith, even though he was living in the midst of a pagan culture (II Kings 5:15–19).

AND: Rahab, the prostitute, had only the smallest amount of knowledge of God, but the Bible refers to her as a woman of faith, and her actions were commended (Joshua 2:9; Hebrews 11:31).

I borrowed the thoughts above from this link - http://www.josh.org/resources/study...about-those-who-have-never-heard-about-jesus/ This is a Josh McDowell series.

I loved his book, "Evidence that Demands a Verdict!"

 

Let me add ....

..... we are commanded to go, YES! And with satellite, there are few places that the Word has not gone to!

Still, before the advent of technology and ease of travel, there were places no one ever put the footprint of the Gospel in! For this reason, I believe Paul speaks to those folks and civilizations in Romans 2:12-16.

I use the moral standard that all are given upon being born into this life. This was God's way of giving a chance to those who were not within ear shod of the Commandments, or the Gospel f Grace! :type::type:

 

I was always impressed with these verses;

Acts 16:9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.

I could be wrong, but I always got the impression this was a real man who had heard at least something about the gospel, and he wanted Paul to come preach to him and his countrymen. And God answered this man's prayer.

 

Not always true!

I can't disagree with you sister, and I completely agree that those whom the Gospel has been made known to, will in fact be under its full and complete scrutiny.

However, before the birth of Jesus, there were the Jews and the pagans/heathens. We know of Jonah being sent to share the message of God's love and the need to repent in Ninevah, but that is one of the few times, God laid it on the heart of a Jew to take the message to heathens.

This shows me that God has love for ALL of His creation, and it this is true, then He had to make something within us be cognizant of right from wrong. Thus, the moral standard clause is in action.

Know, you may disagree with me, BUT I firmly believe that God has placed within ALL His creation the ability to develop a system of right from wrong, and within their pagan societies, they developed laws that governed the behaviors of its citizens, doling out punishment for wrong or evil behavior.

If this is true, that for those who were never broached with the Gospel message, or the Jewish knowledge of Jehovah, He will judge them accordingly to their ability to live within what they know as right or wrong, and how well they abided within their societies moral standard!

I believe God to be fair, righteous, loving God ... and I have confidence He will adequately and fairly judge those who NEVER heard the OT laws or the Gospel of Grace!

One must remember that John 3:16 states that God desires that no one, NNE, perish. Which says to me, that outside of having the opportunity to hear the message of the Gospel, God provided another way to keep mankind from perishing! :thumbs:

 

Amen! I agree completely.

Another relevant passage: "34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" (Acts 10).

So anywhere in the world someone seeks truth and salvation, God will see that they find it.

 

If you believe that then you believe in works salvation. Keep in mind that even those under the law in the OT did not get saved by works or keeping the law. They got saved by grace through faith. Your belief on this is part of the falling away, turning from sound doctrine, mentioned in scripture that will take place in the last days. Please listen carefully and do not further harden your heart!

Again! Salvation is NOT about fairness. Even hearing is NOT about fairness. God is not being fair when offering salvation or being unfair if we never hear the message. It is not like our relationship with our children. We give one a candy bar so it is only fair that we give the other one also. We are not born God's children 1John 3:10 and God is not obligated to give everyone the same opportunity. It has NOTHING to do with fairness. It is all about grace and choice, His grace and His choice.

Let's say that two men broke into your house and raped and butchered your whole family and then they were both caught and sentenced to death. And let's say that you are the governor of the state and you show one mercy with a full pardon, and the other you let be put to death. It has nothing to do with fairness as both deserves death. It is totally grace on your part. The same with God. He chooses. You would not be unloving for not sparing both and you would not be unfair for not sparing both. Neither deserved being spared. The same with us. We do not deserve even a chance for salvation. Not so much as even to hear the message.

To even hint, much less state, that God must be fair and grant someone a possibility to heaven apart from repentance and faith is to suggest that there is somehow some kind of merit within that person. God is not acting out of fairness, not at all. Fairness suggests that we have some claim or right to something. We have no right to hear or be saved other than what and to whom God grants. It is all about mercy to who He wants to give mercy and hardening who He wants to harden.

If someone does not hear the gospel and does not come to repentance and faith they will NOT enter heaven! To get to heaven without hearing, repenting and coming to faith means people are saved by works. NNE will be saved by works.
Part of the churches problem today is it has lost the understanding of our sinfulness or to say our lostness. There is NOTHING good about us, nothing! God did not look down at fallen man and see that the right thing to do was give us a chance to be saved. The right thing would be to condemn us all, not save us. There is absolutely NOTHING about us worthy of saving. His offer is totally out of love and mercy, not obligation or fairness. Again Romans 9:13-20

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

For anyone to say that they believe in a loving and fair God and suggest that those who do not hear and that God must provide some way to heaven for Him to remain fair and loving other than for them to come to repentance and faith is to Judge God by man's standards, and blaspheme His character, and it needs to repented of immediately.

God's ways are not our ways. It is us who needs to repent and bring our thinking into accord with His if He allows. If we hear it is not because God was being fair. If we do not hear it is not because God was being unfair. We do not deserve to hear. It is all about sovereign grace if we hear and sovereign choice if we do not. Once this is understood we can better understand the grace we have been shown in the mist of our worthlessness, and see the great debt we owe that can never be repaid. God bless

 

All damnation is eternal. NO BELIEVER will suffer stripes! Our sins will NEVER come up if we are believers. He has cast them as far as the east is from the west.
The amount of stripes is the degree of suffering, not the length of it. Some will suffer at a greater degree, but any suffering is still suffering and eternal. Hell is not one big place where everone gets the same punishement just like heaven is not one big place where everyone gets the same rewards or has the same level of comfort. Each will have their own place in hell and each will have their own dwelling place in heaven. Judas went to his own place acts 1:25.

 

What sort of neighbor he is, or desires to be, to his fellow man would be the better indicator of whether he is regenerate or not.

He can't, not in the sense of a 'lost sheep' coming home to a covenant relationship with Christ in this temporal realm, thus becoming a 'saved sheep'.

 

You're forcing a 'moral standard' that you're imagining into the text, which seems to be the normal thing to do with you gospel regeneration types. It is 'THE LAW' that is being referred to in Ro 2, not an innate 'moral standard' that's going to either send one to hell or to heaven in the event of the absence of the gospel:

12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without the law: and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law;
13 for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified:
14 (for when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves;
15 in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them);
16 in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ.
17 But if thou bearest the name of a Jew, and restest upon the law, and gloriest in God,
18 and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,
19 and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness,
20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth;
21 thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
22 thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou rob temples?
23 thou who gloriest in the law, through thy transgression of the law dishonorest thou God?
24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, even as it is written.
25 For circumcision indeed profiteth, if thou be a doer of the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is become uncircumcision.
26 If therefore the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision?
27 and shall not the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who with the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law?

 

Well then, I have wasted 33 years of my life trying to reach the Japanese with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if as you say "God provided another way to keep mankind from perishing." I would have been better off in a cushy pastorate in the homeland.

Do you think the Japanese could have gotten saved through Shinto or Buddhism perhaps? These are rotten, terrible, wicked religions with no hint of salvation from sin in them. The Zen Buddhist priest Ikkyu was a drunkard, serial adulterer and wicked in many other ways--yet he is honored in Zen as one of its greatest influences. I cannot write on a public forum some of the wickedness involved in these two religions--and Hinduism is even worse and Islam probably is worse in secret.

No, Acts 4:12 is eternally true: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." And Rom. 1:20 is also true: "They are without excuse."

 

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

It's interesting that nearly all flavors of Christianity down through the centuries have held to some form or another of 'hardline restrictivism'.

 

Yes and it should not be surprising that only one is of the truth. The link you posted as an explaination is one of the false teachings. It holds ever so subtle falsehoods but none the less false and a little leaven leavens the whole lump. There is one thing about truth. Unless it is pure it is no longer true.

 

Well, you need to read of Abraham, because he held God to a standard of fairness.

Gen 18:23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?
25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
26 And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

Abraham judged God after man's standard, he said, That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked.

Abraham did not believe God had the right to go around and kill whoever he wanted as you seem to believe. If you deserve death, yes, but if you do not deserve death, no.

And God agreed and said he would spare the city if he found 50 righteous persons there.

This is in fact the argument God used against Jonah as to why he spared Nineveh, because there were over one hundred and twenty thousand small children there who did not know their right hand from their left. They were not guilty of sin and did not deserve destruction. God implied that he SHOULD spare Nineveh, that it was just and right for him to spare the city.

Jon 4:10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

So, your view is WAY OFF. You seem to believe like the Calvinists that God is a tyrant that can do whatever he wants and cannot be held to any standard. This is not true or biblical. Jesus hated HYPOCRITES. God obeys his own laws and rules. And God is FAIR, he does not favor one person over another. There is a whole chapter on this in James, you should read it.

And as for those that hear, I have already showed you scripture that if men did not hear, they could not be held accountable for sin.

Jhn 15:22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.

Jesus said if he had not spoken to men, they would not have had sin. The scriptures say sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

God is not like a speed trap that pulls people for speeding where there are no signs telling folks the speed limit. If there is no known law, then sin is not imputed. This is another reason babies and little children are not judged sinners. This is why Paul said he was "alive" without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and he died. When Paul matured and learned the law, it was then that he was convicted as a sinner and spiritually died, not before.

 

Even you Judith, you have your form of hardline restrictivism too. As harsh and restrictive as any of the others.

 

If by 'salvation' you mean to bring them into the kingdom here on earth, then yes, I agree. But if you are referring to eternal consequences:

So Christ actually is NOT the only mediator between God and man, there are others?

So the Spirit actually does NOT blow where He wills, it requires a man to carry Him?

 

You are not understanding what is going on. Abraham IS judging God by man's standard. God does not spare Sodom because of even 3 righteous who was lead out. He destroys Sodom. Sodom is NOT spared even because of Abrahams accusations against God and most important this is not about salvation, but life and death.

About Nineveh. Again you are not understanding. God chose Nineveh not Jonah. When God speaks to Jonah He speaks to Him on Jonah's terms. Keep in mind that Nineveh was not the only wicked city and God did not spare any other. Also God did judge Nineveh and destroyed it about 100 years later. God is showing His right to choose. It is not about being fair.

About your speed trap example. God did not tempt man to sin. He did not set a trap.

As for Romans 5:13 Paul is not saying men were not sinners prior to the law, and not on the way to hell, but that they would not be judged by the law prior to its giving. Those without the law will be judged There is none righteous no not one for ALL have come short of the glory of God.

Look at Romans 5:15 all are condemned because of ONE man's sin. Sin does not need to be imputed to make us lost. We are seeds of Adam and his transgression sold us into depravity. Men do not become lost at their first sin or knowledge of sin. We are born lost. There is none righteous no not one.

Lastly what you are ignoring is that every instance you gave the people had to hear and come to repentance and faith. There is and will never be another way. God chooses. It is not about fairness. Not all hear and if they do not hear they do not get saved. He chose Israel as His people and no one else. It was not for any reason but His will. God does not operate on the grounds of being fair as men contrive it. He operates by grace, and sovereignty.