Class Lesson February 2, 2014

Real Questions People Ask

Christians in the 21st century need to know what they believe and why they believe it. The six sessions of the “Honest to God” study will enable you to grow in your own faith and equip you to be more effective in sharing that faith with others. These sessions address foundational issues in the life of every person: The origin and significance of human life,the existence and nature of God, and how God reveals Himself and relates to people.

Last week we explored the second real question people ask: How can I Be Sure God Exists? This week we will look at another challenging question that real people ask.

Real Question #3: What About People Who've Never Heard About Jesus?

What makes you say, “That’s not fair?”

Is it “fair” for a loving God to punish an innocent person because he or she has never heard about Jesus Christ?

This is a good question because it forces us to consider what we believe about God's "fairness." Unfairness hits all of us. Big issue or small, we want fairness. But unfairness rises to a new level when we’re discussing eternal matters. Is there a question behind the question: Are they condemned, or does God give them some kind of free pass.



Is it “fair” for a loving God to punish an innocent person because he or she has never heard about Jesus Christ?
 
The question arises from a faulty premise. The truth is no one is innocent. Everyone is guilty and deserves eternal separation from God (Rom. 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.; 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned.). Nevertheless, God in His mercy offered, through Jesus Christ, the way to be forgiven and receive eternal life. 

The Bible tells us:

1. God desired “everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). Since that is so, it creates a tension with the fact that people face eternal judgment.
2. Salvation is impossible apart from the personal faith in Christ (Acts 4:12 “12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.”).

How do we reconcile God’s desire for all people to be saved with the fact that all people have not heard about Jesus Christ? Roman 1 provides valuable insight.


Is it fair that someone would die and not go to heaven simply because he or she has never heard about Jesus and, therefore, never had the opportunity to receive Him?

• That is a tough question, but it becomes a purely academic one for the person asking it. The person who asks that question obviously has heard of Jesus Christ and must consider another question: What am I going to do with Jesus?
• In Romans, Paul begins by showing us that all of us are in need of salvation because we are all sinners. None of us are without excuse, for even the creation points us to God.

Our Lesson Says

All people are without excuse.

I. NO EXCUSES - WE ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE – ROMANS 1:18-25
18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. 21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. 24 Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

Some who claimed to be wise became fools and proceeded to make a horrendous exchange. This exchange had God at its center.


What does it mean that people are without excuse?

• Look again at verses 18-25 for these exchanges and what happens as anyone rejects God. In Romans 1:18-25 Paul details how some people have rejected the general revelation of God and therefore are without excuse before God. God has revealed Himself clearly. His eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in His work of creation. All people are without excuse for rejecting God.
• Verse 21 indicates that those who reject God knew Him but failed to honor Him or give Him thanks. This is an apt description of the essence of sin. We were created to enjoy fellowship with God and to dedicate our lives to glorifying Him. We have all fallen short of God’s standard. Fallen sinners become guilty of worshiping creation rather than the Creator.
• Because of their shameless idolatry, God delivered them over to the impure desires of their hearts. God has removed His restraint so that sinful humans might experience the devastating consequences of their rebellion. The phrase their bodies we degraded among themselves is a reference to sexual sin. It is no coincidence that whenever we read of idolatry in Scripture, we find it accompanied by immorality.
• Whether we are members of a pagan tribe in the isolated depths of another continent or managers of a great wealth in a bustling city in America, the Bible declares us to be without excuse before the throne of a holy God.

Is it fair that people go to hell even though they have not heard about Jesus?

• We agree with Paul, that all are without excuse for rejecting God and embracing a lifestyle of sin. Everything God has done in creation blasts the clear and powerful message about Him to everyone everywhere. The only way people can ignore the message is to throw blankets of rejection over the loud speakers of creation as they try to smother the proclamation of His presence in His world.
• Paul details how some people have rejected the general revelation of God and therefore are without excuse before God.
• God’s wrath comes on unrighteousness now as well as at the final judgment.
• God has made known His reality and His nature through the created order.
• Humankind is responsible for what God has made known about Himself, therefore, they are without excuse. Paul says that people would exchange the truth of God for a lie about His existence. The truth screamed at them in creation, but they would ignore the truth and tell themselves He didn’t exist. Instead they would worship and serve something He created.
• God expresses His wrath in this life by His allowing people to become what they desire and to bear the consequences thereof. The consequence of such a foolish exchange became evident soon enough. People chose to worship the creatures instead of the Creator. In response, the Lord delivered them over to walk the path they had chosen for themselves. Turning them loose, He allowed them to give in to the cravings of their hearts that emanated from their selfish souls. He would allow them to go where their sinful hearts desired. The path they took would lead them to indulge in sexual impurity. Before long, they would disgrace their bodies in unrestrained and shameful immorality. The human bodies God created to experience fulfillment in Him would turn into nothing more than tools to be used in the uninhibited pursuit of godless lust. Such disgusting behavior became the sentence when God let them go.

Why is God angry at sinful people?

• Because they have substituted the truth about Him with a fantasy of their own imagination. They have stifled the truth God naturally reveals to all people in order to believe anything that supports their own self-centered lifestyles. God cannot tolerate sin because His nature is morally perfect. He cannot ignore or condone such willful rebellion. God wants to remove the sin and restore the sinner – and He is able to, as long as the sinner does not stubbornly distort or reject the truth. But His anger erupts against those who persist in sinning.
• Paul argues that no one can claim by their own merits to be god in God’s sight – not the masses, not the Romans, not even the Jews. All people everywhere deserve God’s condemnation for their sin.

Does anyone have an excuse for not believing in God?

• The Bible answers an emphatic no. god has revealed what He is like in and through His creation. Every person, therefore, either accepts or rejects God. Don’t be fooled. When the day comes for God to judge your response to Him, no excuses will be accepted.

How could a loving God send anyone to hell, especially someone who has never heard about Christ?

• In fact, says Paul, God has revealed Himself plainly in the creation to all people. And yet people reject even this basic knowledge of God. Also, everyone has an inner sense of what God requires, but they choose not to live up to it. Put another way, people’s moral standards are always better than their behavior. If people suppress God’s truth in order to live their own way, they have no excuse. They know the truth, and they will have to endure the consequences of ignoring it.
• Even though nature reveals God, people need to be told about Jesus and how, through Him, they can have a personal relationship with God.
• Knowing that God exists is not enough. People must learn that God is loving. They must understand what He did to demonstrate His love for us (5:8). They must be shown how to accept God’s forgiveness for their sins.

What kind of God does nature reveal?

• Nature shows us a God of might, intelligence, and intricate detail; a God of order and beauty; a God who controls powerful forces. That is general revelation. Through special revelation (the Bible and the coming of Jesus), we learn about God’s love and forgiveness, and the promise of eternal life. God has graciously given us both sources that we might fully believe in Him.

People tend to believe lies that reinforce their own selfish personal beliefs. Today, more than ever, we need to be careful about the input we allow to form our beliefs. With TV, music, movies, and the rest of the media often presenting sinful lifestyles and unwholesome values, we find ourselves constantly bombarded by attitudes and beliefs that are totally opposed to the Bible. Be careful about what you allow to form your opinions. The Bible is the only standard of truth. Evaluate all other opinions in light of its teachings.


“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name” -Brennan Manning 



God reveals Himself two ways:

1. He revealed Himself in creation.
2. He revealed Himself in man's conscience.

The issue is how do we respond!


This is definitely bad news. But there is good news. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope to all of us who are without excuse. The fact that all of us are without excuse is a sobering reality, but let’s remember what Paul wrote before he launched into the issue of our sinfulness: there is good news, and it is the gospel of Jesus Christ! 

Remember Why Romans 1:16-17 is in Orange

II. THE GOSPEL BRINGS SALVATION TO ALL WHO BELIEVE – ROMANS 1:16-17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith. 

(The Burden is on us!)

How can we reconcile God’s desire for all people to be saved with the fact that all people have not heard about Jesus?

• Observing God’s presence in His world paves the way for all people to turn to Him. Merely acknowledging Him in His creation isn’t enough to save. It won’t give the truth needed to experience new life in Christ. Ultimately people need to know the gospel of Jesus Christ to receive His gift of salvation. People who reject God even though they see Him in creation will face His judgment on their foolish choice. People who acknowledge God because they see Him in the world He created take a step toward salvation (Heb. 11:6). They need the gospel so they can respond to it by giving themselves to Jesus Christ.
• Paul expressed his confidence in the good news of Christ. He declared he was not ashamed of the gospel. The gospel had changed Paul’s life forever. He urged everyone he encountered to receive Christ’s gift of salvation, to enjoy a personal relationship with God that would give them abundant life and glorify God. We can be just as confident as Paul in the gospel of Christ because it is God’s power.
• The good news of salvation through Christ is not a static and lifeless collection of stories about a first-century Galilean preacher from Nazareth named Jesus. It is a dynamic, life-giving proclamation of the living Christ who is able to save people so they can have eternal life in a relationship with Him. Paul said the gospel went first to the Jew. Generations earlier, in the days of the Old Testament, the Lord had set apart the nation of Israel to be His people. From the nation of Israel would come the Messiah, God’s Chosen One, who would bring salvation. But Jesus didn’t stop with the Jewish people. He reached out to everyone. And like Jesus, Paul preached the gospel also to the Greek. (People who weren’t Jewish).
• Paul insisted the gospel would make an eternal difference in the lives of people who received Christ. At the very moment they welcomed Christ in their lives, they would be made right with God. That’s what Paul had in mind when he mentioned God’s righteousness (V. 17). The gospel declares we are made righteous in God’s eyes by placing our complete trust in Christ. As we walk with Him, we learn that our faith in Him enables us to grow from spiritual infancy to maturity. In fact, life in Christ is a walk from faith to faith. It’s a journey of faith in the God from beginning to end.

To what does the gospel of Christ refer? Why was Paul not ashamed of the gospel? How does the power of God in the gospel become active in a person’s life? What does the gospel reveal? What does it mean to live by faith?

• The gospel of Christ is a life-changing message whereby we are saved from sin.
• The gospel makes known the righteousness of God whereby He justifies those who believe.
• Salvation from God enables us to have life and to live faithfully.

Live It Out
Paul built his case that the Gentiles were sinners in need of the gospel on the basis of the revelation God had given them in creation. Even so, we do not learn everything about God through the created order. It can, however, lead us to acknowledge that there is an all-powerful, pre-existent God who is Creator. The Gentiles about whom Paul wrote refused to make that acknowledgment, as do many in our day. The refusal to do so is something for which they will be held accountable.



Of course the fullest revelation of God is in Jesus Christ. Those who believe in the existence of God through creation need to hear the fuller message of revelation and salvation in Christ. Those who have heard that message of good news will be accountable for what they do with it. We who have heard the Word and believed it are charged to share the good news of Jesus with the world, beginning at our doorsteps and reaching around the world, that all might be saved from the wrath to come on all rebellious and unrighteous persons.



So how do we respond to the question regarding those who’ve never heard about Jesus? The best answer we can give from this passage is that God will deal with each person based on what they do with the revelation of who God is and what Jesus Christ has done. 

 Here are three things we can do:

1. Ask yourself. Begin with your own response to the message of Christ. You have heard the Gospel, so respond with repentance and trust in Jesus Christ.
2. Get to know an unreached people group. Research. Pray. Give. Ask God to reveal your role in reaching that people group.
3. Invest yourself in a mission experience. Join a short-term mission trip with the goal of sharing Christ with an unreached group.

God could have devised any way to transmit the good news of Jesus Christ. He has chosen to entrust us with His message of reconciliation.



Men in the Grip of Ministry
Scott Lehman will never forget the day he used his seven iron to drive a golf ball through his sister’s bedroom window. The most vivid part of the memory is not the sound of shattering glass, or hiding out in the old sand-filled John Deere tractor tire, or even hearing his father shout his full name: “Scott Nelson Lehman! Where are you?”

It was what his father said after brushing the sand off his tearful 10-year-old boy: “Son, you’re forgiven.”




Added Thoughts: What About People Who’ve Never Heard About Jesus?
There are plenty of difficult questions Christians must answer regarding how God acts in this world. Perhaps the most often asked is, “If God is good, why is there evil in the world?” Another difficult question is, “What happens to people who have never heard the gospel?”

Christians generally acknowledge that people who reject the gospel are eternally condemned, but what about those who do not hear the gospel? What about people who have been cut off from Christianity and have never heard the name of Jesus? Are they condemned, or does God give them some kind of pass and allow them into heaven?


Believers need not speculate on this matter. God has not remained silent.

No excuses

In a recent post, I talked about how God has revealed Himself in both general and special revelation. Revelation means that God has not remained silent. People of every language and tribe can recognize His existence because of creation.


The hard question comes in the space between general and special revelation, those caught in the information gap. Are they condemned?


Paul addressed this situation in Romans 1, saying, “For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them” (vs. 18, 19, HCSB). The result of this revealed truth, Paul continues, is that “people are without excuse.” So while it is easy to think of innocent people who have never heard the gospel, God says no such innocent people exist.

What then?

God has made a way for them to hear the gospel! He called and commissioned His people – first the nation of Israel, then the church – to bear witness to His light. God has placed missionaries the world over.


A recent lesson in Bible Studies for Life noted, “Whether we are members of a pagan tribe in the isolated depths of another continent or managers of great wealth in a bustling city in America, the Bible declares us to be without excuse before the throne of a holy God. This is definitely bad news. But there is good news. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope to all of us who are without excuse.”1


The burden is on us

The simple fact is this: there are some people who die without Christ, eternally separated from God, not because God does not care but because we do not. God did something only He could do (provide a sacrifice for sin) and empowered us to do what we must do (take the gospel to the ends of the earth). The burden is no longer on God; the burden is on us.


Perhaps this is why the Bible describes those who bring the gospel as having beautiful feet (Isaiah 52:7). Rather than being content to have millions die without Christ, we will live in the power of the Holy Spirit to take the gospel to them. What a blessing it will be to see those who are in darkness come to know Jesus, the Light of life, in this life and the next.


God bases His judgment on three things:

1. The light of truth that a person has heard.
2. What did they do with that truth. Their response - did they ignore or pursue?
3. Bases of opportunities.

God is just - He ALWAYS does the right thing.

1. When people reject Him for whatever reason they will pay the consequences.
2. When people seek Him to know Him - God will reveal Himself.

  

 

Prayer of Commitment

Dear Lord, thank You for making Yourself known, foremost in Jesus Christ. May I be so awed in knowing You that I will be diligent in making You known to others. Amen.

See you on Sunday!

In His Love,

David & Susan