Featured Matthew 11:27 and salvation

Why do you answer a question with a question?

OK I'll do the same for your questions but with one difference my rebuttal question will be from scripture.

Genesis 18:25b ... Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

 

I wasn't answering a question. I was asking one of canadyjd
MB

 

Same - Genesis 18:25b ... Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

 

I agree however God doing right is not what some believe. The right, would be to give everyone the same opportunity.. Could you be happy in heaven with your children in Hell because they never had the same opportunity as you?
MB

 

I can't know that until the last day of eternity.

 

If all things are possible with God and He always does the right thing isn't it within the realm of possibility that He has made a provision for these to hear the gospel?

 

I think there are quite a few people out there who do, @canadyjd .
I remember years ago "drinking in" everything the preachers in the pulpits told me about how salvation worked, and I often thought, "What about those who have never heard the Gospel, or will never hear it?"

I can't recall if anyone ever posed that question to them.

But I do know this:
Since "all have sinned", and no one is saved apart from the Gospel, then there are indeed many that have never heard it.
By my own personal reckoning, there are billions of people that have been born and have died, from the beginning of the world...and probably a few billion of them have never even heard the Gospel at all.

Does anyone think that Noah was able to cover the entire world in his day, even though he was a preacher of righteousness?
I urge you to think again.

Earth is 25,000 miles around at the equator.
It takes a man, in top shape and running a fairly flat course, over 12 hours to run 100 miles ( if he lasts that long ), travel by car takes 21 hours straight through from Boston ( 1,300 miles from there to where I live, averaging 55mph stopping only for fuel ), travel by sailing ship took about 6 weeks to cross the Atlantic from England, and travel by camel took probably all day to cover 20-30 miles in the hot desert.
Jungle travel gets cut by at least 1/2, because of the dense undergrowth.

If Noah and his family were the only ones that heard and believed ( if he tried to tell anyone about the coming flood ) out of countless ( estimated ) millions of people at the time, what makes people today think that human preachers can cover the globe and deliver the Gospel to the estimated 53 million people who die every year?

In my opinion, if the understanding of 2 Peter 3:9 is with regard to all men being the "us-ward", then God is not willing that any man perish, but is constrained by man's faulty efforts to take what people He can "get", based on the fact that there are probably only a few thousand missionaries ( of all denominations ), at work in the world today.

In other words, preachers and teachers seem to be losing a lot of possible converts, and the sheer number of people going to Hell without any hope, is not by design, but by the failure of men.
Again, 53 million people die, on average, every year on a planet of 7+ billion.


My question:
Why aren't more "non-Calvinists" realizing the precarious situation, and enlisting en-masse by the millions, to carry out God's will?

 

Hank,
Truly all things are possible with God.

But since it takes the preaching of the cross to bring someone to Christ, then the logistics of the operation would far out-strip what is in place today, even to cover those that are dying all over the world each day ( 151,600, on average ).

Back in the days without mass media, how much of the world was covered with that preaching, and how much went uncovered?
How many multiple thousands never heard the Gospel?
As I see it, far too many to count.

What about the people in Asia that Paul and Barnabas were forbidden of the Spirit to go in and preach to ( Acts of the Apostles 16:6-7 )?
There were some that were undoubtedly dying even then, and God told them not to go.

My point?

If God chooses, then He puts preachers where He wants them, and they preach to the intended audience.
If man chooses, then millions of people that He is "not willing that any should perish"...perish.

 

What is your point Dave?

Who preached to John the Baptist who was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mothers womb?

 

No one, at least publicly.

My point is that God's Spirit goes where He wishes, and begets who He wishes by God's will, not man's will.
I guess I sometimes lose track of what I see you saying, and I don't know whether or not you're playing the "mugwump"...


It keeps me guessing.

 

WRONG! some aren't getting a "second chance" because they never had a "first chance".

Besides God makes the rules and gives 1, 2 or 70 times 7 chances - whatever He decides with or without our systematic theologies

 

No, he hadn't been "born of water" yet.

 

Of course