Featured Poll: “Many are saved having never heard the gospel”?

Just wow!

 

Well if you do not believe what the bible says then I can see that my pointing it out to you would become trying for you.

 

Did I ask you to, NO. But you really should trust in a Sovereign God and not the limited god you seem to think can only do as you say He can.

 

I have many times you just do not like the answer. Would you care to tell me why you want to limit the sovereign God of His right to do as He pleases? Those that hear the gospel message have to make a choice but you want to limit God, WHY?

You refuse to even look on the NET to see if perchance He might actually prove you wrong.

Did you actually read what I wrote or just jump to defend your theological view? The fact you still will not allow God to be God tells me a great deal about your theology.

God is sovereign, why do you not let Him be? You assume that everything to know about God is found in the bible, your view limits Him. We will spend an eternity and still not know the full extend of the love that God has for His creation.

 

No. But the amazing thing is how He gets the gospel to the most remote areas. Man has enough revelation to know that God exists per Romans 1, so all are without excuse. But if one recognizes that God exists and seeks after Him/longs to know Him (gropes after Him as Paul says) based on what limited knowledge they have - God will reveal Himself to them by getting to them the gospel.

 

As long as it fits your theology.

Really? Where?

Also in Hebrews: For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them.

LOL. The amount of vitriol in your posts makes it clear it is very much your problem

Kinda what Calvinists have said since Moses.

 

Check out these 3 stories

1. A pastor that I am working with from Nepal grew up in a Hindu Priest Lineage. He himself was on the same path. One day while walking along, he saw a piece of paper on the ground, he then picked it up and read it. It was a Gospel Tract which led to God converting him to Christ. He then started a church in Nepal that is still going while he is here attending a seminary.

2. Back in 1946-47, it was obvious that the Reds were going to win the war against Shek. At least some of the pastors, who were not very good Mandarin speakers were all of the sudden great translators and preachers to the unconverted which God used to bring about salvation (per a missions professor (Culpepper) who was there and saw it first hand).

3. Mid-late 1940s, a ladies missions organization heard about a tribe of people in Panama? Or Guatemala? That had never heard the Gospel. They buy Bibles and literature in Spanish and ship to them.

during the trip, the pilots started laughing because the people that were supposed to receive the literature did not speak Spanish. They get over the Andes and decide to throw the crate out since it was of no value.

A few years later, another MABTS professor (Chester Cadwallader Jr.), and some others decide to go and evangelize these people in the mountains. They approached the Chief and were told No, they could not preach. They asked them why, and were told that “we have our own God”.

the pastors were like “yes, we understand, but we want to talk to you about the real living God”. Again, No was the answer.

finally, they were ok, tell us about this God that you serve. The reply was “His name is Jesus and He is Gods son who died on the Cross to save us from our sins”

astonished the pastors said who told you this? No one was the reply. How did you hear about Him?

seems like there was a large bird (the airplane) which dropped a box out of the sky that contained Bibles and Christian Literature which brought them the Gospel!

the local chief/mayor was the pastor.

the whole village had been converted to Christ - all because of a Ladies SS Class, 2 rebellious airplane pilots and God honoring their concern by saving a small village in the Andes Mountains!

4. Then there’s the Ethiopian Eunuch. That’s a different story on how God gets His Word to His elect!

 

1 Peter 1:18-23,25

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days. Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart. For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. But the word of the Lord remains forever.” And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.

 

No. But something I would bring up in this particular discussion is that we need to understand that "The Gospel" is a much-confused term for most. First, we need to understand that when Scripture speaks of "The Gospel" we have to keep it in its proper context. While "The Gospel" has a Biblical overview as a reference to "The Gospel of Jesus Christ," we have to also keep in mind that understanding, just as Revelation itself—was progressive. So while the Proto Evangelium may have told Adam that the seed of the woman would destroy the enemy of Man, that doesn't mean that we forget that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was a mystery, and remained unrevealed until the coming of the Comforter at Pentecost.

Consider:

Colossians 1:25-27 King James Version


25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;

26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:


Here we see just one of Paul's statements that The Gospel of Jesus Christ was hid from "ages and generations," but is now made manifest. It is in this Age tat God has made known to us the "riches of the glory of this mystery," which is the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was not known to the Old Testament Saints.

So let's look at the context of "The Gospel" here:

Galatians 3 KJV

8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.


"The Gospel" given to Abraham was that the world would be blessed through his seed (offspring). But what was not revealed to Abraham, nor any of his sons and daughters until Pentecost—was exactly what that would mean.

Likewise, Isaiah gave brutal detail of the Death of Jesus Christ, but what does Peter do when the Lord Himself gives him the Gospel?

Matthew 16 KJV

20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

This is not a moment of weakness for Peter, it is simply a matter that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not yet revealed. Again, it would not be until the Comforter came at Pentecost and men were at that time baptized into Christ, receiving the Eternal Indwelling of God, and themselves began preaching the mystery of the Gospel.

The "Gospel" Abraham heard was not—Jesus Christ is the Son of God Who has died in your stead that you might be reconciled to God. It was ...

Galatians 3 KJV

8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.


You and I, as born again believers, and privy to the Gospel of Christ as revealed to us by God, can understand what the blessing that is given unto all nations is. We can understand what Isaiah meant when describing Christ's death.

But they could not. Understanding was withheld from them until that time when God would make it known unto men.

So in answer to your question, no, a man cannot be saved apart from the Gospel, because only the Gospel can save men. It doesn't matter whether that Gospel is in an Old Testament context, or a New—faith in the revealed will of God is the only means of salvation. There is no salvation for men by "being good," because it is not possible for men to be righteous before God and therefore independent of His grace and mercy. There is none righteous—no, not one!

If you look at the Old Testament Saints, you are going to see one thing they all have in common: faith in the revealed will of God. While I do believe that God reveals His will to all men, and that sometimes that is directly from God and apart from Scripture (Romans 1:19-20; Romans 2:14-15), I don't think this is something happening that often (at this point in time) in this Age. The Word of God has traversed the earth and most have heard about the Lord at this point. Even if this happens, we can still see that what God imparts to the heart of a man—is the Gospel.

I would say yes, it is. The testimony of Jesus Christ is the spirit—it is the life—of prophecy. Prophecy has a central theme the coming of Jesus Christ for the salvation of Man. The idea that men can be saved apart from the Gospel, regardless of the Age, regardless of the progression of Revelation (the giving of knowledge, not the Book (though that is certainly relevant, lol))—is absurd.

God bless.

 

I have no problem with anything you wrote. But many on here do have a problem trusting God to use what ever means He wants to reach people, even dreams.

God is sovereign, they just do not want to let God be sovereign. He is only allowed to act as they see fit.

 

no, as natural revelation saved n ot any lost sinner , but the good news is that ALL God intends to get saved shall receive the good news by some fashion!

 

I Corinthians 1:21

Roman’s 10:14

 

The most important thing is that GOD is love and He is sovereign. Yes we are saved by receiving the gospel message but I am surprised that you would think that God can only do what you think He can do. When you say all we need to know about God is in the bible you seem to forget that we are also told that He desires all to be saved and yet you think it is fine if that really means just those that happen to hear the proper words.

If I recall calvinists are the ones that call the simple gospel message "easy believism" so by your logic most are not saved because they did not even hear the gospel the right way.

God is sovereign over His sovereignty so for someone to tell Him He can't is the height of hubris.

 

See post # 38

 

You write your comments but then at the end agree with what I have said, Let God be God.