Destiny Of The Unevangelized

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Evangelism and the Destiny of the Unevangelized

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm thankful to be the recipient of the free grace of the triune God, the only God of the universe, and it wasn't that long ago, well, I guess it was quite a while ago, 1982-ish, I was a punk rock disc jockey at KZUM, K-Z-U-M, and I want to say our call, well, those were our call letters, but I'm trying to think of our station, 88 -9 -89 -5.

It was a small, little, super-liberal radio station, and so my show is called Aural Delights, Aural Delights, and a kid named, he's not probably a kid anymore, I don't even know if he's alive anymore, Bill Stoughton, Bill Stoughton, why don't you email me?

He was my co-host, and he was, I was kind of more into punk rock, Joy Division, those kind of bands, and he was more into synth stuff. I think he liked Human League, so it was a mixture of things. I like my music better than his.

And so I did that. I didn't do too much talking, but some, sadly I was too stoned probably to talk. So now I host a radio show that talks about not compromising, trying to point you to the one who never did compromise, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don't want to, but sometimes I do. That's why I'm glad I follow and have been placed into union with Christ, to the one who never compromised. Our tagline is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

So what am I going to talk about today? I got criticized a while ago that they thought I laughed too much, they're screeching music, and that I just make stuff up, or I ad-lib because I'm ill-prepared.

I do ad-lib quite a bit compared to what I used to do, but I have all my notes right here in front of me today on my iPad mini. So I'm trying to create a conversational atmosphere that you can kind of just talk back to me, and you can email me, and I'll email you back, and what you think about the show matters to me.

That actually part, that part is true. I want you to like it, I want you to like the show. I've been talking about evangelizing, and therefore bringing up the question that often comes up at the fireplace and other times, very common question that I receive as a pastor.

What about people that have never heard the gospel? Where do they go? Well, there's a lot of people that have never heard the gospel. There's a lot of people in different South American countries, African countries, European countries, Asiatic countries, North American places, that have never heard the gospel.

Not just in our day, but in lots of other eras. We're talking lots of people. Where are they all? Heaven? Hell? Limbo? Ooh, in the limbo. So this is part two. Kurt Daniel has a great section, and so I think I have his outline here.

How much of this is my own, you'll never know, unless you run the Mark Driscoll plagiarism file, template. How much trouble can one guy get in? I mean, it's just all unraveling, isn't it? You've got the plagiarism issue.

You've got the strange fire exit stage left issue. You've got to sign clauses and phrases and conjunction, what's your function, termination clauses and disclosure deals if you're going to be on staff so you can't say things later.

You buy yourself into the New York Times bestseller list. Now, my new book that's out, I get, I think, up to a thousand copies for 60 off retail or something like that. Maybe I can buy more. Why couldn't I buy more?

But I'm not going to do it for that reason. If the church bookstore wants to use my author discount to buy some, I think I'm going to buy some at that price for no compromise, maybe giveaways or something, digressing.

Why the Unevangelized Are Not Saved Like Old Testament Believers

The un-evangelized, what is their destiny? Are they lost? What is going to happen to them? Now, I said last time that God can do whatever he wants, right? He can do whatever he wants as often as he wants.

But I've just got to go with what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches no one deserves to go to heaven. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ's life and death, they're the only thing that God would ever think was meritorious.

That's why faith in him is so important because it's either our own law-keeping or trusting the one who keeps laws who's divine and can have that great divine imputation of what he did apply to us. I got sidetracked for a minute.

I just looked outside and I was thinking about something else. If I wouldn't be five minutes into the show, I'd probably just tape over that. See? You're just making up stuff. It's ad lib. And so, my personal view is, along with most of the Reformers, that if people don't hear the gospel, they don't go to heaven.

Now, we'll get into what about children and what about those mentally handicapped another time. That'd be another good question. But people start thinking right away, all right, well, if that's your position, people that never heard the gospel in these islands for all these years, you mean every single one of them?

And so, Kurt Daniel has some objections to this doctrine, and we'll talk about it. Objection number one, the heathen that never hear today are like Old Testament believers before Christ. So, see, they didn't hear about Jesus, and that is the Old Testament people.

They didn't know him by name. And so, therefore, the people today don't know him by name, but they know there's a God who creates and a God who sustains, and you know what? It's completely different. That's a bogus objection.

The Old Testament saints believed in the Messiah. They believed in, you might not want to call him Jesus, but the Christ. And you think about the promise back in Genesis chapter 315 and then the Abrahamic covenant in chapter 12 of Genesis.

You think of Isaiah 53. You think of Psalm 22 and Psalm 110 and Psalm 2. People get saved by faith. You go to Romans chapter 4. How are people saved? Just as David also speaks of the blessing of one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, Romans 4, 7 goes on to say, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. And the whole thing is justification by faith. Because it goes back to verse 3, Abraham believed God and it was credited or counted to him as righteousness.

Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but his due. And so, that is a bad correlation. They're just like the heathen or just like Old Testament believers? Not at all. There's another objection that Daniel lists.

What about good Muslims and good Hindus? So for us, what about the innocent pygmy? Well, as R .C. Sproul would say, if there exists an innocent pygmy, he will be in heaven because God would have no reason to judge him.

He's innocent. But because Romans 5 is true, imputation of Adam's sin to everyone, including that pygmy, consequently has a sin nature. He's no longer innocent. So there's no one good but God, I think, about the rich young ruler running up to Jesus.

The way Daniel phrases it, which is interesting, you know, a good Muslim, a good Hindu, you might as well speak as a good idolater or a good blasphemer or a good devil worshiper. I'll add my own two cents into Daniel's words, a good pagan, good adulterer, good murderer, right?

Sermon on the Mount. If you, you know, hate in your heart or have adultery in your heart, lust in your heart. So there's no one good because you've got to go back to the fall. How many answers or how many questions are answered with, if you just understood the fall, you'd be in good shape?

People say, well, what about Socrates and Plato and these great philosophers? That's a question that Daniel has here. Well, what about them? Can't go to heaven just because you're famous. You're not a pre-Christian.

You're not a pagan Christian. Can you imagine pre-Christians, pagan Christians? How about Christianity seen in the stars? Well, stars are what kind of revelation? Natural or specific? Well, they're natural.

And so natural revelation damns. Natural revelation shows you you're in big, big, big, big trouble. The God that can create this whole thing is your judge. Yikes. It's not going to give me any hope. There's no gospel there.

Oh, it's impressive. It does tell you news like powerful, wise, invisible, Romans chapter one, but it doesn't tell you the good news. It tells you the problem. Couldn't God bring the gospel to men through visions, dreams, and angels?

That's another question that Kurt lists as an objection to the idea that until the gospel through missionaries got to Sri Lanka, people there perished in their sins. Well, God can do whatever he wants, but Hebrews chapter one talks about in these last days God has spoken to us in the person of his Son, in Son.

So he has his apostolic messengers, and then what happens? Do you have angels showing up to Cornelius and preaching the gospel? No. Daniel said, and there is no indication that the angel with the everlasting gospel in Revelation 14 .6 is evangelizing anyone on earth.

Another objection. Yeah, but I heard about some of these people that were saved before the gospel got there through missionaries. What about those stories? What about those rumors? What about Don Richardson's book, Eternity in Their Hearts?

These people understand Jesus Christ and his specific life and work through nature. They just need a little push, a little instruction, a little bit of, here, well, I don't know about those things. Any kind of anecdotal evidence.

Well, I can say it never happened. You can't prove that either. You can't unprove that. So I have to go back to what the Bible says. Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ, Romans 10, 17, justified by faith, Romans chapter 3, 4.

There's another implication here. What do we do about missions? If in fact, heathen that don't hear the gospel are saved through stars, let's not send missionaries because then they're surely going to reject Jesus, right?

Or at least a high percentage. So let's just play the percentages. If the amount of pagans that reject the specific work of the person of Jesus, if that percentage is the same or close to how many people in America reject, then why go make all those people damned, right?

What are the implications for missions with this deal? The reason why we do go is we realize their souls are hanging in the balance and it has been the sovereign hand of God, the same God that said to Paul, don't go to Asia right now, go to Europe instead.

God sovereignly, you know, why was America founded with a lot of Bible? So if let's say Judeo-Christian principles or ethics, or I'm not trying to say it's a Christian nation, but there's a lot of Bible in America.

You might not think so. I might not think so, especially here in Massachusetts, but if you look over America compared to India, why is there so much gospel here, so many Bibles here, so many churches here, and not so many in India?

Well there is a human responsibility, certainly, I wouldn't deny that. But overarchingly, I tried to make that into an adverb, didn't I? There's the sovereign hand of God. Well, what about this objection in terms of evangelizing heathens?

Everybody would say that, that would be good, but what if they've never been evangelized? There's something in our hearts, our compassion, our feelings, and we want to somehow protect God from the implications of the sovereignty of God and salvation.

Isn't that really what the scoop is? We want to, yeah, protect is a good word. We don't want God to be shamed. We want him to have a good image, a good public image. I used to play the band back at KZUM, Public Image Limited.

So we want God to have a good public image, and if he's going to be damning all these people that he didn't even send missionaries to, objection. It would not be fair of God to condemn the heathen if they have not heard the gospel.

God owes every man a chance to be saved. Really? Now, see, this happens often. Well, you've heard the gospel now, now you're accountable. Really? Here's what you mean. I think you mean well, because you just told the guy the gospel, assuming that it was the gospel, the real good news, focusing on the person and work of Christ Jesus, our representative risen substitute.

Here's what we're really saying. You're more accountable. So you're already accountable because natural revelation holds men accountable. Read Romans 1. Special revelation, if you don't believe, it's even worse.

It's more than double downing. It's even worse. Why? Because now you're talking to them specifically. God has so arranged it in his providence that someone has told you specifically about Jesus. There are lots of people that have never heard that, but now you hear that about this great God man, Jesus Christ, compassionate, heals men like blind Bart.

He gives blind Bart more than just physical eyesight, but spiritual eyesight saves him from the sins. Blind Bart is no longer blind and he's in heaven now. He's just such a great God, great preacher. I was reading the Sermon on the Mount this morning.

What a great preachers. He is the Prince of Preachers. Somebody ought to write a book, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers. I'm sure it'll sell less than 4 ,000. Hey, I did get a $2, well, it was actually one pound 50 pence check from England once for that book.

So is it fair of God? No, the heathen are owed nothing from God who gives grace to whom he wants to give. They deserve justice. They deserve punishment. They don't deserve grace. Nobody deserves grace.

See, it goes back to we have a bad view of grace. We don't understand grace like we ought to. Well, doesn't God then at least owe people the offer? He should at least give them the offer, John Gershner.

Assuming that God does damn such persons, why is it supposedly unjust of him to do so simply because they have no opportunity to be saved? If these persons are damned, they're damned because they are sinners.

They're not damned because they have had opportunity to be saved and have not utilized it. Their opportunity or the lack of it has nothing to do with their being damned. They're being damned because they are sinners.

What is unfair in God's damning sinners? Some will say, granted that God could damn men for the sins they have committed, even though they did not hear the gospel and there would be no injustice in that as such.

But does not God have an obligation to offer a way of salvation to everyone? But we ask, why? Why does God have an obligation to offer salvation to any sinner? Grace, by definition, is undeserved. If it were deserved, it would not be a gospel, it would not be grace.

So, Kurt Daniel puts the reprobate in two categories. Those that hear the gospel and reject it, and those that never hear the gospel, and both are damned for their own sins. And there is an element of justice, isn't there?

Because the one that has sinned more will be judged more severely. The one that receives the gospel and turns it down will have not only natural revelation but special revelation, and he will be judged for that.

The good news is, theologically, in the covenant of redemption, when God the Father and the Son, and if you'd like to include the Holy Spirit, that'd be fine by me, in this pact, this covenant of peace, this covenant of life, the elect are given to Jesus to go rescue.

And Jesus is going to rescue them and then give them back to the Father. And every one of those elect is going to make it. If Jesus died for someone on the cross, they're going to heaven. If the Father chose someone, they're going to heaven.

If the Spirit regenerates someone, they're going to heaven. And the Spirit is only going to regenerate those that the Father has chosen and the Son has died for. And I can say the same thing. If Jesus is going to die for someone and the Spirit is going to regenerate that same someone, we already know before time, God the Father has elected that someone.

And so every person that has been chosen by God, remember, no one deserves to be chosen. Every person that's been chosen by God goes to heaven. They will hear. God will have so moved in the life of a missionary to go let him have the good news through the means of gospel preaching.

That's why we don't need an angel. We need people. This is the way God has ordained it, through people. Will I say that it's impossible and God has never used a bird or an angel or something like that to say specific things to a person over some time, place, on the moon or something?

I don't know. But the way God works is through proclamation. And every elect person will hear the gospel and will believe. Otherwise, let's just stop all our missionary endeavors now. Why damn people?

And don't be a hyper-Calvinist either. You know, God's just going to save all these people and so he doesn't need me. Well, okay, you're right. With that kind of attitude, he doesn't need you. But since we all have bad attitudes, thankfully we worship the one that had a good attitude.

We get credit for his good attitudes and he got credit for our bad attitudes. He doesn't need us, that's true, but he in his sovereign pleasure has decided to use people like us. One of the reasons is so he'll get all the praise and the glory because we certainly couldn't contribute to salvation, displacing sins and crediting righteousness.

And that goes back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. That goes back to jars of clay in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, doesn't it? Of course, it does. Daniel said, beware also of those who speak of the larger hope in parentheses, in quotation marks rather, that those who never hear the gospel can be saved in another way.

This theory is erroneous, umbilical and un-reformed, always in that un-order. So, I would say, what about the people on your block? What about the people in your city? What about the people in your county?

What about the people in your state? What about the people in your country? We're arguing over Sri Lanka and Madagascar and I don't know what other kind of islands are in my mind. But what about these people that you know?

Maybe some of them are elect and will they go to heaven? Yes. But the way God has worked it is that you would have a burden for them and you would go preach the good news to them and tell them to lay down their arms as God is offering clemency through the finished, sufficient work of Jesus Christ.

And as they lay down their arms, they must believe and repent and turn from their sins with a wholehearted trust in the God-man. So, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. You can write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

I will get every one of those emails and most likely will answer yours or I'll pawn it off to someone else and they'll answer it as well. Ben is doing a great job on Facebook and on Twitter. Harry's got the blog updated now.

Every week there's a new article, the No Compromise blog. Cool black website, red, no co-colors. Josh did a great job with that. So, for all you tech people, you're going to be green with envy. And if you'd like to go to Israel with us, that's February 17, 2015.

You want to get your deposits in as soon as possible, correct? And you can find us also on iTunes and other places. God bless you. This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Www .nocompromiseradio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.