Please, Don't Evangelize The Heathen

Losing sight of Eternal values, our view becomes truncated and our vision distorted, our Christianity is no longer Christian.

Mission Emphasis Week
Something that was undoubtedly foreign to the early church has become an annual staple on the calendar of many, if not most, evangelical churches, Mission emphasis week. It is hoped, of course, that during that special event, someone will feel the call to missions, or the missionary budget will experience a financial charge. In many cases that has proven true, so we thank God for every missions endeavor in every evangelical church, no matter how large or small.

However, it seems to me that if the church were what the early disciples knew it to be, there would be no need for such a special week. Those disciples were motivated by the exciting reality of the recent resurrection of their crucified lord. His words proclaiming the reality of both heaven and hell still rang in their ears and in their hearts. Theirs was not the dutiful practice of religious ritual, but the energetic exercise of a living experience. They were motivated by a magnificent message.

During a recent missions emphasis week I attended an Evangelical Bible Church in another city. In the course of the Sunday meeting the pastor conducted a survey among the 200-250 member audience. Three statements were made to which there were three responses from which to choose. The statements: There is a literal hell; the heathen who hear and reject the gospel will go there; the heathen who never hear the gospel will go there. The response options offered were: I agree; I don’t know; I disagree.

2/3 of the people were not convinced that the heathen were lost if they had not heard the gospel, and half of those (1/3 of the congregation) were sure they were not.

More in Scripture about Hell than about Heaven
To God, hell is a very real entity. It is a place of torment, something to be avoided. Prepared for the Devil and his angels, its horror is commensurate with the eternal havoc Satan wrought upon God’s creation. Jesus, in describing the scene that shall occur at the judgment of the nations said, “Then shall [the LORD] say to [the lost], ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.’”(Mat.24:41)

Before creation there was nothing but God and his abode. After sin was introduced, however, there immediately became a realm in which separation from a sinless God was inevitable. God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said, “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink...but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands...therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure...and their multitude...shall descend into it.” (Isa.5:11-14)

The Bible speaks of hell as torment. Because man is created in the image and likeness of the eternal God, man’s soul is eternal also, therefore, if he is separated from God forever his suffering is eternal. It is this that prompted Jesus to say, “It is better for thee to enter into life maimed than...to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” (Mark 9:43,44)

God, of course, knows this and has made us aware of it through his Word. So appalling is the fate of the lost that God, in his great love, sacrificed his only begotten Son that whoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.(John 3:16)

It is understood by many of us that those who profess to believe God’s Word should believe what God has said about hell, and about the lost condition of the unregenerate descendants of fallen Adam. But, alas, that is not always the case.

No One is good enough for heaven or bad enough for Hell
It seems there are those who believe God’s doctrines are as subject to critique and correction as are the opinions of men; many of which would rationalize that man, not being perfect, is not good enough to go to heaven, but is certainly not bad enough to go to hell. Therefore, if God is so loving that he has made a way for unworthy believers to go to heaven, surely he loves unbelievers (many of whom are as good as some believers) enough not to send them to hell.

In fact, as the survey indicated, there are those “believers” who cannot imagine that a loving God could even tolerate the existence of a place like hell.

We don’t hear much about heaven either
Actually, many of us are not hearing a whole lot about heaven these days either. It seems the more sophisticated we become the more likely we are to want the good life here and now, and the less we view eternity as an imminent reality. What many of us are hearing in church has more to do with how to get along and prosper in this present world than it does with magnifying our eternal hope

Because we are not hearing much of the eternal horror of hell, or the everlasting joys of heaven, we are becoming less conscious or concerned with where we are going. Why, then, would we be concerned with where others are going? Especially if we are among the 33 percent who don’t believe hell is a threat to the unevangelized heathen, or the other 33 percent who deem it unimportant enough not to bother to determine whether God’s Word is reliable on the subject.
Contemporary Christianity is most concerned with the Here and Now
Micro-management, vs. Being “On Course”.

Jehovah is the God of eternity, and we who are in Christ are sons of the eternal God. Our future and heritage is in eternity and that is where our sights should be set.

When we are adjusted to and governed by God’s eternal values all that relates to today falls into place. That’s what Jesus was referring to when he said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The increasingly secularized religion that often goes under the name of Christianity, today is filled with borrowed psychology that the world has developed to make the consequences of our warped living patterns more manageable. But as we apply ourselves to the micro-management of our daily lives, the eternal outlook becomes increasingly obscured.

“How To” is the message today, as though the life is ours not his
There are still preachers and teachers who expound the Word of God in such a way as to draw us into the heavenlies, men whose mission is to have us look upon the face of God. But they are not the majority. Today the message is more likely to be how to: how to deal with your depression, or your addiction; how to make your second marriage more successful than your first; how to succeed in your business; etc.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that “It is God that works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”(Phil.2:13) According to God’s Word, “Christ in us is our hope of Glory”.(Col.1:27) “He is our life.”(Col.3:4) The apostle Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”(Gal.2:20)

It is imperative that we not lose sight of the fact that the life we have in Christ is his life, and he lives it in and through us. It is far more important for us to know who than how.

Being on course avoids the areas we are being taught to manage,
God has called us to a course – a race to a finish line – that should ever be the center of our attention. The Word of God admonishes us to run the race looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.(Heb.2:1,2) That straight course will take us on a path that will avoid the addiction, abortion, divorce, wicked relationships and sin that is such an integral part of the world. Even if all of those things are a part of our history, the pursuit of God will lead us to new horizons where those things are but dim memories.

“On Course” brings us in touch with God’s Priorities
Being “on course” with eternity in view keeps our furrow straight, like a plow man lining up on a distant marker. We are able to keep everything in perspective because we can see from here to eternity. Our present values relate objectively to the all-important “forever” that stretches out before us. The enlarged view gives us a context with room to include important doctrinal truths, including the fate of the heathen, and what is my relationship to the Great Commission.

I can begin to see from God’s perspective. Why would God have sacrificed his Son for the heathen if they were never lost? Why would he have told us to go and preach the gospel to every creature if to do so would condemn them to a lost eternity? The answer, of course, is that all of Adam’s descendants are lost because they are dead in trespasses and sin; but the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all that believe. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But to call they must first believe, and to believe they must hear. That’s what the apostle Paul was thinking about when he asked the rhetorical questions, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?”(Rom.10:14,15)

But if we don’t agree with God on this matter it would make more sense for us to do everything in our power to keep the gospel from them lest they should hear it, reject it, and go to hell. If they would be saved through ignorance missions would make no sense at all.

Compare Natural values and Christian Values
The apostle Paul said, “If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable.” So-called Christian values without an eternal hope and a heavenly perspective are simply not Christian values. They are no different than the natural ideals of the world’s society. For every Christian organization striving to enhance living standards or improve health and hygiene, there is a worldly organization with the same objective.

The world is full of atheistic or agnostic counselors trying to save marriages, improve morals, guide families, provide peace, joy, and understanding; in short, striving to attain the same goals as the Christian counselors. Good morals, honesty, sobriety, love, peace, joy, gentleness, goodness, patience and self-control are desirable qualities that the world would hail as worthy objectives in their pursuit of the perfect society.

These are good, but natural values. In a Christian’s life none of these things are goals, they are fruit generated by the control of the indwelling Spirit of God. The goals are different: conformity to the image of Christ; the crown of righteousness; ruling and reigning with Christ; beholding the face of the Lord Jesus; seeing the worthy Lamb of God receive the reward of his suffering, and hearing ‘Well done thou good and faithful servant.” The goal is an eternal one.

Those goals and values that lack the element of “eternity” – that fail to embrace the person of Jesus Christ and anticipate heaven – are not Christian. They are simply natural ideals.

The Christian message is not how to live, it is who to live for. It is why to live. Anything short of this is why we need “mission Emphasis Weeks” in our churches and why 1/3 of a Christian congregation can believe it is best not to take the gospel to the heathen in spite of what Jesus himself told us to do.

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