Christian or Non-Christian: That is The Question!

Most Christians think of the world in very basic terms: Christians and non-Christians.  Christians, they believe, are headed for heaven, and non-Christians are headed for Hell.  That's it, and that's all there is to  it.   But are they correct in their thinking?  

Does any one think about the millions upon millions of fellow human beings that have been born, lived, and died in places where the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has never shone and where the name of Jesus has never sounded?   It is encouraging to find that these are not forgotten and that some concern has been voiced for them down the centuries, and there they are still not forgotten by Christians and others, even as there are some that have written them off as if they had never existed.  

It's a Big Big Big Big Big Big World!

If we take as a 'for instance' the age of the earth as James Ussher reckoned it to be, that's around seven thousand years, and make a reasonable guesstimate of the number of inhabitants that have passed through and out of it, and note when the Christian message first broached the native air of all the world's people, what kind of a picture do we get?

Paleography and Population Guesstimates

If we start looking at ancient cultures around the world that have left remains that can almost certainly be considered religious in nature, showing clearly that their concern for the dead reaches beyond this present world, then we have so many pieces evidences that we must take seriously even where we might disagree with their reconstruction.  

It is tempting to list them for no other reason than to demonstrate how widespread and permanent they were in efforts to get some notion of the scale of pre-Christian religions, but our only concern at this juncture is to make the point that there have been more non-Christians than there have been Christians, and with that in mind to return to the question of whether they come under the ambit that

"God so loved the world that he gave his only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in his should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might have everlasting life."  

What God Didn't Say And Didn't Mean!

"God so loved the world that those that live and die without hearing the name of Jesus are damned to Hell to writhe and burn for eternity!"

If they are, then we must question the reason for their creation in the first place.  The troubling thought that they might be nothing more than God's playthings through no fault of their own is far too close for comfort to Greek paganism, so that cannot be it.  

If we determine them to be fully human creatures of Almighty God, like ourselves,  then we have to fit them into God's Plan of Salvation for all His children and not suppose that a just and loving Father is blithely  indifferent to the fate of his own children when they have done no wrong, but have not had the opportunity to do right and choose Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.  

Go To THE CHALLENGE

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