Today We delve deep into the complexities of salvation, heaven, and hell. Our speaker reflects on a personal journey through religious debates that led to powerful revelations about eternity. Explore the unsettling questions that arise when considering a God who might condemn those who never had a chance to be saved, and how some theological beliefs hold discrepancies. This episode sheds light on age-old discussions, encouraging listeners to ponder deeply on the notions of justice, mercy, and divine plan.
00:00:01 Introduction and Debate on Heaven and Hell
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Many years ago, before I learned better about arguing religion, I got engaged in a discussion with a fellow about heaven and hell and salvation. I had a problem with his beliefs, and he had a problem with mine. He believed that everyone goes to heaven or hell immediately when they die. There were no intermediate categories of people, and there were no stops along the way. Do not pass go. Do not collect $100. You go straight to hell or straight to heaven at death, and that’s all there is to it. Not only that. But he believed that only those who had accepted Jesus Christ as personal Savior, full knowledge and all that, would go to heaven, and the rest would go to hell. Now, you may say that sounds a great deal like what you believe, but let’s talk about it. Hell, in his belief system, is a tough proposition. In hell, one is tormented by fire, and not for a few hours until he dies, nor for a few days. No, not even for a few years. Hell is forever. I heard one preacher sort of give the illustration that he said, imagine, if you will, a mountain of granite a mile high and a mile in diameter at the base. And once every year, a little sparrow flies to that peak and proceeds to sharpen his beak. When that little bird has finally worn that mountain of granite one mile high at its peak and one mile wide at the base, all the way down to a little pebble that it can carry off in its beak, one day of eternity will have passed. And for some people, according to the way some people believe the Bible, there will be people who have spent that entire period of time in hell in complete torment. And that’s only one day of eternity that’s going to have to go on. Now, here was my problem. My granddad was a salty old fellow. I don’t know if he ever went to church a day in his life. He was known on occasion to use a little bad language, and he smoked and a few things like that. But overall, he was a pretty good sort. He took me fishing a lot, and we camped out together by a campfire on the banks of a river and got up every hour or two and ran trot lines all night and fished most of the morning until I went to sleep on him. Now, if you want to tell me that my granddad, old J.D., can’t go to heaven because he didn’t meet some standard of religious actions, I can live with that. But there is no system of human logic that can see any justice in tormenting old J.D. with fire and brimstone for all eternity. There is something wrong with this picture. I will say, however, old J.D. at least knew who Jesus Christ was. He just didn’t know that it made much difference to him. My discussion with the gentleman in question focused on people who never even heard the name of Jesus any time in their lives. How could it be right for God to torture these people forever? Tell me he’s going to leave them dead, and we have one set of things to deal with. Tell me he has arranged for their eternal torment, and we have another one altogether. Now, mind you, hell is not merely something that happens. Hell is something that has apparently been created, designed, and planned for people and for their torment forever. then there are the children. I asked him, I said, now if all these people, including countless children, who never had a chance to be saved for all eternity, well, what about these people? And then he said something truly astonishing. He said to me, well, if they never had a chance to be saved, then they are saved. Now I was flabbergasted, so I wondered, I said, why then does your church send missionaries to these people? To give them a chance to be lost? Because our conversation had been going on for a while about the whys and wherefores of churches that believing that people out there in India and people in Africa and wherever they are are going to go to hell and burn for all eternity. How come we spend all this time in our Wednesday night business meetings in church Spending money on air conditioners and improved decor, new stained glass windows, taller steeples, and all this kind of stuff. If we really believe that people are going to burn in hell for all eternity because we didn’t get a missionary out there to them. There is an inconsistency on all this. I hope you can see that. Well, that ended my discussion with him, but I had another one not so long ago with my sister-in-law. We made our way through the same sort of discussion to the point where one has to deal with the question of the salvation of people who never had a chance to be saved in this life, and particularly with children. She knew as well as I did that you can’t postulate a God who will torment people forever and ever who never had a chance. that any intelligent person is going to have a problem with that. She thought about it for a moment, and then she concluded, well, I believe that God will make a way. And in that, we finally found agreement, because so do I. But I think it would be strange indeed if in all the pages of the Bible we couldn’t find so much as a hint as to what that way is. You know, I’m not so sure that I would have ever seen it if it were not for the fact that many years ago I began observing the holidays of the Bible. I decided that you couldn’t see Christmas and Easter and these other holidays in the Bible, so what holidays were there? And I found some. They’re what the Bible calls the Feast of the Lord, literally the appointments of Jehovah. Most people call them Jewish holidays, but I found, much to my surprise, that they are just as Christian as the Lord’s Supper. It’s just that people haven’t been paying attention. And more important, they are revelatory of the plan of God and its broad purpose and its broad outlines. And in one of those holidays, I found my hint as to what God’s way of salvation might be for those who had never had a chance. When I come back after this message, I’ll tell you what I found.
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One thing I found was that this is not really a new question. It’s been around for a long time. And I know that a lot of people have shed a lot of tears, have lain awake long nights many times, worrying about loved ones who have gone on ahead of them, who have already died, without accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or without some degree of a religious belief movement in their life that somehow you could say, well, this person won’t go to hell, or they will go to heaven, or I’ve got a chance of seeing them again, even apart from the idea of going to hell or burning forever. The question of the loss of the loved one, the loss of a chance to ever see them again, can really be tormenting to people. Well, the Apostle Paul struggled with the same question, but he struggled with it at a slightly different level. Paul, you see, traveled all over the Roman Empire, and every time he would go to a new city, he would go first to the synagogue, and he would preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And everywhere, most of the Jews, very few exceptions, just rejected the gospel. This troubled Paul a lot, and I can see why it would. I mean, here’s something you have learned, something you have seen. You met this man with your own, you heard him speak with your own ears, seen him with your own eyes, and you know that Jesus Christ died, was buried, was resurrected. Paul, apart from his own experiences, had researched it. And so he comes into the synagogue absolutely convinced of Jesus Christ’s Messiahship, who he is and what it’s all about, and he preaches it with all the fervor of his being, to blank faces and hostile faces. Once or twice got himself stoned for preaching this gospel. And to him, there was something profoundly wrong with this picture. He addressed the matter in an important letter he wrote to the Romans. And there’s no particular reason, I think, why it crops up in this letter. It just does. And I’ve gone back and looked at the context. And so I wonder why Paul decided to make this statement in Romans. It’s a long one. It runs about three chapters. And the only conclusion I can come to is that it was bothering him. And because it was bothering him, he had to talk about it. Now, Paul’s style is elliptical. That is to say, he leaves a lot of things unsaid that he thinks will be understood by his readers. Unfortunately, not many modern readers of the New Testament have the background in the Old Testament to quickly grasp what Paul is talking about. The book of Romans, I think, has 46 direct citations out of the Old Testament, and they are taken out of the Old Testament out of context. So then unless you know the pattern that is being developed in the Old Testament ones, you’ll tend to miss what Paul’s driving at here. He is a difficult study in some cases, and no more so than he is in this 9th chapter, 10th chapter, 11th chapter of the book of Romans, which is the area that I stumbled onto and began to understand, hey, this is not new. My being troubled with this is not just fresh on the horizon. Paul worried about it right from the start. What on earth, he wondered, is going to happen to the Jews. These are God’s people, folks. They know who God is. They have kept his laws. They’ve tried their best to be faithful to God. And for some reason that Paul couldn’t fathom in as many cases, they were rejecting the gospel of Christ out of hand. It bothered him. It bothered me. Well, he wrote to the Romans, and he said in chapter 9, verse 1, I’m going to tell you the truth in Christ. I’m not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit. This is a little bit unusual because what he’s doing here, he’s giving you a threefold affirmation that what he’s about to tell you is the truth, which means he thinks you’re not going to think it is the truth when he tells you. I say the truth in Christ. I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. It was that bad. He said, if it would help, if there was any way it would make a difference, I would even be willing to be cut off from Christ. And it was a great heaviness and a continual sorrow to him that all these people who were God’s people were continually turning their back on the core, the heart of the gospel of Christ. He says these are the Israelites to whom pertains the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed forever. So what’s going on here? He said it’s not as though the word of God has taken no effect. I have to admit that, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but, quote, in Isaac shall your seed be called. That is, they who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. The children of the promise are counted for the seed. Now, I’ll admit, be the first to admit, that that’s a very, very difficult, long sentence that he’s giving you here. But what he’s driving at is the Word of God has taken effect because the Israel that God is talking about are those people who believe, not those people who are born of the flesh, genetically Israelites. So he said, you know, at least the Word of God is working, and there is an Israel of God. There are children of Abraham, but they’re not genetically children of Abraham. They are spiritually children of Abraham. Then he goes on to say, this is the word of promise. At this time I will come and Sarah will have a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, the children being not yet born, either having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calls, it was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Now, this is troubling, but it’s very important. All the way back in the history of one man’s family, God looked down upon a woman who was pregnant and had twins inside her. And God, before either one of these boys got born, so that he could establish one principle that was important for all mankind to understand down through all ages, said, This is not a question of merit. This is a question of my choice. The elder shall serve the younger. I’m going to love Jacob, and I’m not going to love Esau. And so history fulfilled. Now, this is troubling, because while we’re all willing to admit that God is sovereign, while we’re all willing to say, well, God is God, he can do whatever he wants to do, you still have to kind of wonder, why would one person be favored in this way and another person rejected without even so much as a chance to do good or to do evil? What shall I say, Paul says? Is there unrighteousness with God? Oh, God forbid. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And, folks, I can say to God, look, you’re God. I can accept that. I will accept that. I’m not going to argue with you. I can’t lift up my voice and argue with God. But I’ll have to be honest and tell you, if we’re talking about this life, I don’t understand it. If it’s merely a question, in other words, if the rejection of one man and the acceptance of another is final, that it is not only for this life but for all eternity, it’s problematic. But if it is for this life and if there is more beyond this life, then maybe there’s something more to this that we need to understand. Paul says in verse 16, it’s not of him that wills. It’s not of him that runs. It’s God who shows mercy. For the scripture said to Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared through all the earth. Therefore he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens. Now, I don’t mind telling you, I remember when I was a teenager having read this, I don’t remember why I had read it, but I had, and sitting there wondering, well, am I one whom God has hardened? And how would I know? And what hope is there for me if he has? What is there out there in life? And looking at it from another perspective, if you’ve had a father or a mother or a brother or a sister whom you love dearly, and God has hardened them, Does that mean that they are lost to you forever on an arbitrary decision made by God? Or is there something that we don’t understand? You know, I’m persuaded as I read through Paul here in the 9th chapter of Romans that Paul only saw this thing, as he used his words, through a glass darkly. He had an idea of what God was doing. And in fact, it’s my impression in reading through this that the idea of what God was actually doing was growing on Paul As he went through, following the theology, following his experiences, and piecing what he knew of the Scriptures together with what was actually happening on the ground, he was just beginning to see what God had in mind for man. Now he asks in verse 19, you’re going to say to me, well, why does he find fault? Who can resist his will? No, man, who are you that replies against God? And I’m grateful for this because if Paul hadn’t given me this warning, I might very well sit around saying, well, what’s the point? What is there that I can do? And does it even make any difference what I can do? No, Paul says. Who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why have you made me this way? Doesn’t he have power over the clay, the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor? Well, yeah, I can accept that. But what if I’m one of those made for dishonor? What if God, Paul asks, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? Yeah, he can do that. But what if I’m one of them? And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy whom he has prepared to his glory, even us whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but all the Gentiles. Oh, well, that’s good, but I really hope I’m in the latter category and not the former. But what about those people whom I have loved who are going to be in the former category? What about them? Paul continues, as he said to Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people. I’ll call her beloved who was not beloved, and it shall come to pass that it passed that in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, There shall they be called the children of the living God. And Isaiah also cries concerning Israel. Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. For he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And so the theme comes through. that though the number of the children of Israel be like the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved. And what about the rest? What’s going to happen to them? Are they just lost? This was bothering Paul. He’s working his way around this question with the full realization that as far as this life is concerned, some are saved and some are lost, and there’s just not a whole lot that you and I can do about it. He says in verse 29, as Isaiah said before, except the Lord of Sabbath had left us a seed, we would have ended up like Sodom and like Gomorrah. What are we going to say then? Well, that the Gentiles who did not follow after righteousness have attained to it, even the righteousness of faith. But Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained the law of righteousness. You know, you have to say, though, some of these people, they did their best, but why didn’t they make it? because they sought it not by faith, but by works of the law, because they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. But what Paul is struggling with, and what you and I struggle with, is what about the rest of them?
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We’ll talk more about this when I come back. For a free CD of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled Christian Holidays No.
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18.
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Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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Paul starts the 10th chapter by stating in the firmest terms, in the most heartfelt terms, his desire. He says, brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Now, the first thing to note about this is these are not bad people, Paul says. They are good people. And in their ignorance, they have gone about trying to establish their own righteousness and haven’t understood or been able to grasp the righteousness of God. Now, are we going to punish these people forever? because they were good people who did the best they knew under the circumstances they had, and were ignorant of the righteousness of God, because that is basically what some people say is going to happen to them. It’s troubling. Paul goes on with the 10th chapter of Romans to establish, as clearly as anyone could ever establish, the principle, that is the fundamental concept, of salvation by grace as opposed to salvation by works. This is something that I think is pretty well understood throughout the Christian faith. He makes the point, and then he comes down to chapter 11, and he says this, I say then, has God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people which he foreknew. Now, what are we going to make of all this? Because what he has done in the end of chapter 10 is to tell us that it was the Gentiles. He says God was found of them that didn’t look for him. He was made manifest to them that asked not after him. That is, he went to the Gentiles. To Israel, he says, all day long have I stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and a gainsaying people. Well, what are they, disobedient and gainsaying or merely ignorant and not understanding? And what’s going to happen to them? Well, Paul says, has God cast them away? No, he says. He says, though, however, they had to come to understand it. He says, don’t you know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he makes intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have digged down your altars, and I am left alone and they’re trying to kill me. But what’s the answer of God to him? I have reserved to myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so at this time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And so he understands. Among all the Israelites, there is a remnant. But that’s not the question. The question is what about the rest of them? It says in verse 8, I’m sorry, verse 7, Israel has not obtained what he seeks for. The election have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. According as it is written, God has given them a spirit of slumber. Eyes they should not see, ears they should not hear until this day. And the question you and I struggle with is, is this fair? Is it really right for God to cut these people off, to blind them so they would not understand, and then destroy them forever? I mean, either never raise them from the dead at all, or raise them up and judge them and burn them in a lake of fire, or worse, torment them for a thousand years, a million years, for all eternity. Well, Paul asks in Romans 11, verse 11, I say then, have all these Israelites stumbled that they should fall? Now, how does that work? Well, down through all the generations, the Israelite religion had been just that, an Israelite religion. And in many ways, the Israelites had made Jehovah their own personal property. That is their own national property. And the presumption was, we don’t need to take this gospel to the Gentiles because he’s our God. He is not theirs. And this jealousy, this holding on to God, this xenophobia, I guess, of the Israelites had prevented the truth of God from going to the Gentiles. So the answer is, they got to fall. It’s only through their fall that salvation can go to the Gentiles. Now, if the fall of Israel is the riches of the world, if the diminishing of them is the riches of the Gentiles, how much more will be their fullness? You see, what he’s implying by this is, yeah, they fell and it was for the benefit, but that’s not the end. What’s going to happen when the other side of this comes to pass? And it’s right here that we get our hint in verse 15. He says, “…if the casting away of Israel is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” Because, you see, the problem is not merely that, well, we put all these Israelites away for a while so the Gentiles could come in, and then we’re going to go back and get them later. What about the ones that have died in the process, for there would have been many? Paul answers the question this way. He said the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world. The receiving of them is life from the dead. And in the nature of the problem we’re dealing with here, Paul has sent up a little signal flag and said, take a close look at this concept, because the answer of it may be in the resurrection from the dead. In verse 25, he says, I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles are come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. How? Well, that’s a question that’s going to have to wait until next time.
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Until then, I’m Ronald Dart, and you were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1
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888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net
Today We delve deep into the complexities of salvation, heaven, and hell. Our speaker reflects on a personal journey through religious debates that led to powerful revelations about eternity. Explore the unsettling questions that arise when considering a God who might condemn those who never had a chance to be saved, and how some theological beliefs hold discrepancies. This episode sheds light on age-old discussions, encouraging listeners to ponder deeply on the notions of justice, mercy, and divine plan.
