Pastor Kennedy continues his message on why the world needs Christ, saying that about this time, my friend that I visited hit upon an idea, an objection he thought was certainly going to demolish all of my arguments and utterly lay in ruins the Gospel, the Bible, Christianity, and God Himself. He said to me, with a guffaw and a laugh, “Hah, and you believe the heathen in the midst of Africa is going to be condemned simply because he has not believed in Jesus Christ, whom he has never heard of.” Oh, he was so proud of himself, he could hardly stand it. He had hit upon the absolute unanswerable objection to the Christian message. He thought he certainly had ended the conversation. He sort of said, “Gotcha!” You may have heard that argument also.
He was quite shocked, truly startled, when I replied to his accusation, “No, I don’t. I do not believe that the heathens in Africa, India, China or anywhere in the world are going to be condemned for simply not believing in a Jesus they never heard of. That would mean they would be condemned merely for ignorance.
Now, of course, people who raise this objection never seem to think about the fact that in our jurisprudence, people are frequently condemned for ignorance. Ignorance of the law is no excuse! Have you heard that before? But in God’s system of perfect justice, it is. But, you see, their basic premise is flawed. Therefore, their conclusion is wrong. By the way, I believe that the heathen in Africa or India or anywhere else, without Christ, will be condemned. It is just that they will not be condemned for simply not believing in a Christ they never heard of. They will not be condemned for their ignorance.
Here is another spiritual principle I hope you will never forget, and it is this: Whether in your town or Timbuktu (which, in case you don’t know, is in Western Africa, or anywhere else on this planet) there is only one single solitary reason why anyone, anywhere, at any time, will ever be condemned by God. Only one, and that reason is sin. Nothing else!
A man is out in the midst of the wilderness. Suddenly he is bitten in the calf by a poisonous snake that injects that deadly venom into his body. The man is in tremendous agony. He writhes around, he gets up, he staggers for a bit and then he falls on his face, and slowly, there in the mud and the muck, he dies. While all the time, here in the local Hospital, there is a cabinet, and in that cabinet there is anti-venom—that antidote to various kinds of venom, whether it be rattlesnake or water moccasin or perhaps poisonous spiders, scorpions, or whatever. It’s all there in the hospital marked in bottles under lock and key.
Now, as any rational, reasonable, intelligent, sophisticated modern person will surely understand, the reason that man lies dead in the midst of the wilderness is the hospital’s fault. That hospital killed him! Well, that is errant nonsense. The hospital had nothing whatsoever to do with killing him. What killed him? The poison from that serpent that was pumped into his blood stream—that and nothing else! Ah, yes, the anti-venom in a bottle in a cabinet in the Hospital would have saved him, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with killing him.
Dear friends, it is sin that kills. It is sin that condemns. It is Christ that saves. “I came not to judge the world,” said Christ, “but to save it.” Now, you say, how can a person sin if he has nothing to sin against, if he is ignorant. Ah, you see, there is the fallacy to that argument: no one is ignorant of God, because God has revealed Himself to all mankind in at least two out of the three ways.
God first revealed Himself in the way described in Scriptures: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Wherefore God also gave them up [for idolatry]” (Romans 1:20– 24).
Having known God the Creator, they turned and worshipped birds and beasts and creeping things. Do you know that there is church every night? Every night, everywhere, all night long in every city, in every village, out in the jungles, up on the mountains—everywhere. It’s right out there to be seen. The psalmist said it, David proclaimed it 3,000 years ago: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament show his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1-3). There is no excuse. Repent and turn to God, your loving Maker.
Let's finish this message by Pastor Kennedy on why the world needs Christ in the next post. Merry Christmas
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