What About Those Who Haven’t Heard?Skeptics are very demanding of God. “Why does God do this and that, and why does God allow this and that?” they say.
Robert Ingersoll, for example, asked, “If the Bible is the foundation of all civilization, of all just ideas of right and wrong, of our duties to God and each other, why did God not give to each nation at least one copy to start with?” (About the Holy Bible).
The answer is that God has given light to every nation, and those who respond to the light receive more light. The Bible says that God gives light to every man.
“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9).
God has given the light of creation that we might know that there is a wise and powerful Creator, and He has given the light of conscience that we can know that there is a moral God, and He has given the light of Scripture that we might know who this God is and might have a personal relationship with Him.
God has raised up prophets to the nations from the time of Adam’s son Abel to the present. “God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21), but the prophets have been ignored, ridiculed, persecuted, and killed far more often than they have been honored and believed.
In the days of Solomon, the kings of the earth heard the prophetic wisdom God had given him (1 Kings 4:34).
Two thousand years ago, Jesus commanded His disciples to carry the gospel to every nation, and by the end of the first century it had already been preached in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The Bible in whole or in part has been translated into every major language and most minor languages.
The gospel is preached today by shortwave radio and by the Internet.
The nations have heard, and if they have not heard, it is because they have not made the effort to hear.
They will be condemned by the likes of the Ethiopian eunuch, that nation’s treasurer, who obtained a copy of the prophet Isaiah and sought Philip’s help in understanding it (Acts 8:26-39).
When a man sincerely tries to comprehend the light he has, God will send him a Philip.
God requires that men seek after Him, and promises to be found of those who do.
“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us” (Acts 17:26-27).
“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Luke 11:9).
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
It is not God’s fault that most people sit in darkness today.
“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:3-5).
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