Placentia Presbyterian Church

A message by
Rev. F. David Throop, Pastor
April 27, 2008

Scripture: Isaiah 43:10-13; Luke 16:19-31; John 14:1-7

Please pray with me:Gracious and loving God, Your word declares clearly that eternal salvation is found only in Jesus Christ, that there is no other name under heaven given to us by which we must be saved.1If You truly are a God of an amazing grace, please give to us a renewed understanding of the breadth of Your redeeming grace. In the saving name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Well, just what are your own thoughts on our question for the day, that is, what happens to those who die without knowing Jesus Christ? Every one of us has asked this question at some time or another, and probably a great many times. Every one of us, in pondering its many complexities, have either rejoiced or despaired as we began to imagine all the possibilities. Every one of us in this very room has had relatives and friends, some of whom were very close and so very dear to us, and others of whom were, perhaps, not so very close and dear, but in whose lives the common denominator was that they had simply never accepted Jesus Christ into their lives, and thus, had never been a part of the Christian faith. Some of them, I am certain, were adherents of a religion or faith walk very different from ours, and some of them were simply never a part of any faith walk of any kind. And in their death, we wondered, did we not, what happened to them.

And yet, others of our friends and relatives are still with us, but they, too, have not accepted Christ, and as we love them, we still continue to wonder, what will happen when they die? What happens to those who die without knowing Jesus Christ? What becomes of their souls, their spirits? Regardless of religion, do they still appear before God for some sort of judgment, some sort of ruling or verdict which will then determine where they will spend eternity? If they did not know Christ, do they simply vanish into nothingness? Or, if they never came to a moment of accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, do they finally end up, as many believe, in some sort of place of everlasting punishment? What about those the world over who have simply lived and died apart from Christ — are they somehow reincarnated back into this life and then given a second go around, you know, a second chance, or a third chance, or a fourth chance, or as many chances as it takes until that day that they finally come to Christ? Do they keep coming back until someone introduces them to Christ? Or, is it like this: if these friends and relatives of ours, along with everyone else, die without ever having known Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and without ever having made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, is all of this religion stuff simply set aside, so that they instead are judged on matters of fundamental goodness and basic human decency? And if this is the case, does our faith, does our Christian religion really matter? Just what are your own thoughts on what some of us believe to be a matter of enormous importance? What do you believe happens to those who die apart from Jesus Christ?

For now, let me simply say that if you think all of this is really not much of a concern, I think you need to re-examine the Christian faith of which you are a part. I will simply say it right now: the time in front of us is far too short to probe the many complex issues of concern related to this question, far too short to do a comparative analysis of the world’s major religions, far too short to examine all of the relevant passages on this matter not only in our own scriptures but as well the sacred writings of some of the other significantly influential and prominent world-wide religions. The time in front of us right now is far too short to say everything which ought to be shared in light of today’s question. However, despite the insufficiency of time, my own personal as well as pastoral hope is that by the time we have sung our closing song, you and I will leave this time of worship not only with a greater urgency to reach others with the message of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, but we will leave also with a greater understanding of what we might simply call the indescribable mystery and unfathomable gift of God’s grace.

So, what about Robin Marie? Her last name was Colshan, and she was born at the Loring Hospital in Sac City, Iowa at exactly 8:35 a.m. on the morning of May 1, 1972. Robin Marie Colshan then died just one day later at 8:00 a.m. on the morning of May 2, 1972 at the Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. Her death was attributed to severe complications during birth. Little Robin Marie Her went directly from Loring Hospital in Sac City to the Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines, and then to the Christensen Funeral Home in Ida Grove. Her parents, Richard and Roberta Colshan were members of the congregation I pastored at the time. And so, on the morning of May 5, 1972, we gathered together at an open grave site in the Ida Grove Cemetery not only to seek understanding, not only to seek an embrace of Heavenly grace, but also to seek assurances that somehow little Robin Marie Colshan was even now safe in the arms of our Lord Jesus. I began that brief graveside service with a reminder that the story of God’s love for us began with an infant, that the Christian Gospel begins with a child born of a woman, that when Isaiah foretold of the coming of the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of God’s people, he declared, “For to us a child is born . . .” 2 And I spoke as well of the importance of little children in our Lord’s ministry, and of Jesus’ words reminding us that “of such is the Kingdom of God.” 3 I also spoke of the fact that because little Robin Marie had been born, the lives of at least one family would forever be different, and that nothing would ever be able to erase the fact of Robin Marie’s presence among us, if even for just one brief day. And yet, the clear fact remains that in her brief lifetime of only one day, little Robin Marie never came to know Jesus Christ. And I have no doubts, no doubts at all, that among her extended family there must have been some who may have wondered where little Robin Marie will spend her eternity.

And so, what about Robin Marie? Did she simply get what we sometimes call “a free ticket?” And if she got a free ticket to heaven, are there lots of other categories of “free tickets?” Or what about others throughout my ministry and whose final services I have conducted? What about those high schoolers, young adults, as well as much older adults who never knew Jesus Christ, or those who were given only a brief sketch of Jesus Christ, or those who were given a very wrong understanding of Jesus Christ, or those who, because of such a blatantly wrong understandings of Jesus Christ, did in fact reject him, push him out of their lives, swore at him and even because of him? What about those in these many categories whose services I have conducted, two of whom were murdered as young people, another of whom overdosed on narcotics, or another who, having been ostracized by his entire family, simply ended his life-long misery by hanging himself? Or what about a young high schooler, a non-Christian, but yet, a nice, decent, hardworking kid, who had just been hired at the local grain elevator, but a few days later died after accidentally falling into a large grain bin of corn at that elevator and whose life came to such a quiet and sudden end? None of the names of any of these individuals, you see, were on the rolls of any Christian church anywhere. Or, what about those many others who died at the end of a very long life, good people, decent hardworking people, as they say, but who never came to Christ, or who for every reason imaginable either rejected Christ or simply lived apart from him, just living their own lives wonderfully well and in the best manner they knew how? What about them? What happens when they die? In other words, what about people like these you and I know or have known over the years? What about our current neighbors who are like most of our neighbors, decent, kind, mostly honest, hard-working people, but whose religion is in fact no religion at all, some of whom simply shun what is called “organized religion.” What about them? Or, what about your Jewish friends or your Mormon friends, or your Hindu and Buddhist and Taoist friends? What about those who have simply been born into a different religious tradition, and who from day one have been taught by their loving family to uphold faithfully only the traditions of their religion? Or, what about those born into this life with severe mental retardation, or those born into this life in the midst of so-called parents who were nothing more than druggies, and who thus became druggies themselves because that’s the only world they had ever known, and in whose lives, not surprisingly, there was simply no place for God? What about those who were just about to become introduced to Christ but whose lives were suddenly cut short due to accident or illness? What about those tens of thousands whose lives were vaporized in an instant as a result of bombs dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 and then on Nagasaki just three days later? What about the hundreds of thousands if not millions of residents of Darfur, Sudan, who have brutally lost their lives by infighting among terrorist militias in that country, not to mention the six million Jews exterminated by the Nazi regime, or the 800,000 Tutsis massacred by the Hutu militia in Rwanda, Africa? Or what about the two million Cambodians executed by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in Cambodia, or the 300,000 Chinese murdered by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1937 in Nanking, China? Were not the vast majorities of these also those who, for no reason of their own, were simply ignorant of Jesus Christ, and who thus died apart from Christ? And beyond these more modern day tragedies, it takes very little imagination to think of the millions if not billions of people the world over throughout all of time, including all who lived before Christ, whose lives ended, whether tragically or naturally, without ever having had an opportunity to know of the wonderful gift of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ. What about them?

I distinctly remember early one morning late last fall, when Mary and I were in South Asia, and I was alone on the roof balcony where our Christy and Jon live. And I was looking out west across the vast expanses of their Hindu city, observing neighbor after neighbor after neighbor beginning their early morning pujahs, ringing their little bells to wake up their gods, and then placing rice and pouring a small bit of milt on banana leaves and then burning incense and fanning the incense upward to please the senses of their gods, all of which, they believed, would not only attract the attention of their gods, but an act which would thus earn them greater enlightenment, yet an act which for us seems not only trivial, but rather meaningless and mostly ridiculous by nature, yet an act which for them is an essential element of their religion. And in observing all of this, I quietly visited out loud with my God that morning, convinced that our God knows each one of them as He knows each one of us, that He knows each one of them by name, and that somehow in the larger realm of things they, too, are precious in His sight, convinced that they also need to be reached with the saving love of Jesus Christ. I prayed for them as I sat there on the rooftop. I prayed that as the result of the labors of people like Christy and Jon, and the labors of people like my missionary grandparents among a mostly heathen people in China now one hundred years ago, and the missionary endeavors of Christians the world over, that more and more of these Hindus and Buddhists and animists would come into the saving knowledge and redeeming grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And now, in light of all of these varied conditions of our world, here is the Christian faith, of which you and I are part, a faith which maintains the truth of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospel according to John, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” 4 Here, now, is the Christian faith, a part of whose writings are shared with those of the Jewish faith, words which we read a few moments ago, “‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know me and believe me, and that you may understand that I am he. For before me, no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.’” 5 Yes, these are the words of both Judaism and of Christianity.

And then, we shared together the parable Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus 6, an account told of a somewhat decent man, one who was very obviously connected to his religion, yet upon whose death ended up in torment in anguish of hell, and at a distance, someone else whom some would call a rather worthless beggar, himself ending up in heaven, and apparently due to nothing more than the unexplainable grace of God. A decent, religious man dies and goes to hell, while at the same time a worthless bum dies and goes straight to heaven. Go figure! The best I can do now in these few remaining moments is, as a lifelong follower of Jesus Christ and as one who was called, commissioned, and ordained in this faith, to share with you my own deep convictions, convictions not borne out of empty hope, but convictions deeply rooted in the scripture of our faith. Let me simply share with you seven such convictions.

First, I believe without any reservation that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and in this, I do believe that no one can come ultimately to God our Father except through him. Our Christian faith declares and has maintained for two thousand years that Jesus Christ is the true, perfect, and full incarnation of our Lord God. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” 7 There is no other religion the world over which has a right to make this claim, or which even makes this claim. God did not reveal Himself to us in Buddha. God has not made Himself known to us among the thousands of Hindu gods and goddesses. God has not been incarnated in Muhammad of Islam. God is not the same as the most magnificent of mountains, the grandest of trees, or most extraordinary of oceans. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself . . .” 8

Second, I believe without any reservation that in Jesus Christ we have been given all that is necessary for the gift of salvation. Our scriptures declare that “If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.” 9 When the Apostle Paul was at Philippi, and following the earthquake at midnight, when Paul prevented his own jailer from committing suicide, the jailer asked Paul and his friends, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Do you remember this event? If you do, you will also remember Paul’s response, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your entire household.” 10 “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your entire household.” And when Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the story we read a few moments ago, the rich man in hell is obviously concerned about his family back home, and he is convinced that if Father Abraham could simply make arrangements for someone to return to them from the dead, that they would mend their ways, so that they, too, would not end up in such a place of torment. But Father Abraham says, “No, they already have Moses and the Prophets.” And for them, that is enough. And for us, Christ is enough. In Jesus Christ, you and I have been given all that is necessary for the gift of salvation. And all that is necessary is faith in him.

Third, I believe without any reservation that all world religions are not the same, and that all world religions do not lead to the God of our Christian faith. Oprah Winfrey, popular talk show host, remarked not very long ago, “One of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way.” And then she said, “There are many diverse paths leading to God.” 11 In other words, she and others like her, maintain that it really doesn’t matter what you believe just so you believe in something. For no matter what one believes, it will get you there, no matter what. If you ask me, that’s crazy talk. All religions the same? All religions paralleling each other on the way to God? Are you kidding me? With all due respect, Hinduism, as only one example, is not a parallel path along side of Christianity. In Christianity, ultimate reality is God, while in Hinduism, ultimate reality is Nirvana. The object of Christianity is salvation and redemption, while in Hinduism the object is enlightenment. In Christianity, the destiny of the soul is redemption and transformation through Jesus Christ, while in Hinduism the destiny of the soul is extinguishment and non-existence of the self. In Christianity history is purposeful and goal-directed, while in Hinduism, history is cyclical and endless. In Christianity, suffering can be redemptive while in Hinduism suffering is always seen as evil. In Christianity, love is sacrificial and self-giving, while in Hinduism, love is basically detached selfish benevolence. Finally, in Christianity, saving knowledge is revealed only by God, while in Hinduism, saving knowledge is somehow inherent deep within each individual. 12 In addition to the scriptures, a book which has been extremely helpful for me in preparation for today as entitled, Is Jesus the Only Savior? It’s written by Dr. James R. Edwards, Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature at Whitworth University, Spokane, WA, and in it he makes this observation: “The statement that all religions are basically the same is usually heard from people who are not adherents of any religion.”13 He then concludes with this comment, “To assert that all religions are basically the same, or that one route to the summit is as good as another, is like saying that all sports are basically the same. Bullfighters and bowlers are unlikely to agree. Only a non-athlete can assert such a thing.” 14 All world religions are not the same, and in fact, all world religions beyond the Judeo-Christian faith are very, very different from ours. For in all other world religions, salvation is attained by human effort, while in the Judeo-Christian faith, salvation is a gift from God. All other world religions construct a ladder to heaven, with each higher up rung reached only through human efforts of goodness on our part. But the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ reverses all of this. It is not we who earn our way to heaven, but rather, it is God Who comes to us in our weakness and unworthiness and sin. Don’t you see? God was in Christ coming to us!

Fourth, I believe without any reservation that the gods of all world religions are not the same, and that the God we worship through Jesus Christ is truly and uniquely the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and earth, the One Who reigns supreme above all earthly and heavenly powers, yet the One, Who in grace and humility, emptied himself, Who came to us in the person of Jesus Christ in order that you and I might not perish. No other religion can make this claim. “‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know me and believe me, and that you may understand that I am he. For before me, no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.’”

Fifth, I believe without any reservation that there is now, more than ever before, an ever-increasing urgency for those who know Jesus Christ and who genuinely seek to live in Jesus Christ to reach out to others with the words, the love, and the grace of Jesus Christ. Let’s make this admission: you and I seem to live as if we have all the time in the world. The fact of the matter is, we don’t. Not a single one of us. Not to frighten any of us, but there are some worshipping here today who will not be with us a year from now. There are quite a few more worshipping here today who will not be with us five years from now. And there are a great many worshipping here today who will not be here only twenty years from now. We live as if there is no tomorrow. We live as if today goes on and on and on, and there’s nothing to be concerned about. Okay, but what about others? What about those who don’t know of the love of God through Jesus Christ? What about those whose eternities just might be hanging in the balance, waiting on you or on me for that one word, that one even quiet extension of the grace of Jesus Christ? What are we waiting for? A day with better weather? A day when they will come to us? A day when you know that Frank or I are in town and you can just as easily send them to one of us? If you were driving or walking along a street, and you saw a house starting to burn and you saw no one around to put out the fire, would you simply continue driving or walking along? No, of course not. You would stop what you were doing and you would do your very best to make certain that no one was inside. You would do your best, taking whatever risks there are, to save any residents who might still be inside and who might otherwise become consumed by the flames and lost. In a world which is dying, can we, whose lives are in Jesus Christ, do no less?

Sixth, I believe without any reservation that everything does not turn out the same for everyone, regardless of their beliefs or unbeliefs. I do not believe that everyone “goes to heaven,” as it were. And neither did Jesus. Read the gospel accounts. In fact, read all of scripture. For scriptures to speak of heaven and hell is serious stuff. Very serious. Do not discard the story of the rich man and Lazarus as a meaningless fairy tale told by Jesus who really didn’t know what he was talking about. We don’t spend much time in visiting about hell, but I would simply suggest that as we read scripture, whenever we read of Jesus speaking of heaven and hell, we ought to pay very close attention. Contrary to all of this, you and I live in a world which increasingly shuns any talk of the reality of heaven and hell. There is an ever-increasing mentality that everything is going to turn out okay for everyone no matter what, no matter who they are, and no matter what they have done or not done, and no matter what they have believed or not believed. For at the very least, these same voices ask, “How can a loving and gracious God allow anyone to suffer forever?” The problem is, such a question is not the voice of scripture, and certainly not the voice of our Lord. But don’t you see? Our loving and gracious God does not want anyone to suffer and eternal punishment. That’s why God has come to us in Jesus Christ. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and not counting their sins against them.” 15

Seventh and finally, I do believe, and I believe without any reservation, that for those who from this life die apart from Jesus Christ, for those who were never given an opportunity to know Christ, to those in whose lives the presentation of Christ was outrageously wrong, for those living in a different and distant religion, for those who died apart from Christ whether at the age of one day or at the age of one hundred years, that in some way, God, in the mystery of His unfathomable grace, will somehow still provide an opportunity even beyond death for people to be introduced to Him, to know Him, to learn of His loving sacrifice through Jesus Christ, and even then to be offered an invitation to accept Jesus Christ into their souls for eternity.

But for today’s Church to preach this is fraught with the obvious danger of removing from the Church the urgency of evangelism, the urgency to reach out to a lost world. If we live only with this belief, as attractive as this belief may seem to be, we simply dismiss the urgency of the Great Commission of our Lord, to go into all the world, baptizing and teaching others of Jesus Christ. As I shared last Sunday, there is no Plan B for anyone’s salvation. Jesus Christ is God’s Plan A. Period. And yet, prompted by what we read in the New Testament, that “the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body but live according to God in regard to the spirit,” 16 you and I should live to the end that even beyond our efforts, no matter how excellent or how meager our efforts were, that those who are no longer on this side of heaven might still, by the grace of God, be given an opportunity to receive Jesus into their eternal spirit. And so, just what does happen to those who die without knowing Jesus Christ? That’s neither for you nor for me to decide. Our call is still to go into all the world . . . 1 - Acts 4:122 - Isaiah 9:63 - Matthew 10:144 - John 14:65 - Isaiah 43:10-116 - Luke 16:19-317 - John 14:98 - II Corinthians 5:18-199 - Romans 10:910 - Acts 16:30-3111 - Is Jesus the Only Savior?, James R. Edwards, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005, p. 203.12 - ibid. Dr. Edwards present a very helpful comparative chart on the basic differences between Christianity and Hinduism on page 207.13 - ibid. Page 208.14 - ibid. Page 209.15 - II Corinthians 5:18-1916 - I Peter 4:6 I am extremely grateful for insights presented in a book entitled, Is Jesus the Only Savior? authored by Dr. James R. Edwards, Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature at Whitworth University, Spokane, WA., a book which has been immensely helpful in preparing this message, and a book I highly recommend for your reading.

Copyright © 2008 by Rev. F. David Throop.  All rights reserved.  No part of this sermon may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of a very brief quotation, which will acknowledge the source.