WHICH SYSTEM IS UNFAIR?
The doctrine our Primitive Baptist people subscribe to is fundamentally different from the doctrine of the denominational world. You do not have to be around an Primitive Baptist church very long before you notice there are some fundamental differences in the things we believe, especially with regard to the way people are saved.
But sometimes we Primitive Baptist preachers have been guilty of pointing out that difference in an improper way. Sometimes, especially at our special meetings, we have been guilty of setting up anybody who does not agree with us like a straw man; we flail the stuffings out of him, and the congregation just loves it. But very often, there is some little child of God there for the first time, who is, perhaps, related to one of the members of the church. For a long time he has been after him to “come out and attend one of our services, and see if you don’t enjoy it.” Then the preacher goes to the pulpit, and is abusive in some of the things he says. He is careless in the way he presents the opposing point of view, and the way he attacks it. He says things that are calculated to offend those who do not agree with him.
The visitor never comes back, and we hear folks asking, “Why did he not come back; we had such a good meeting; the preachers preached so well; why did he not come back?” I don’t think you need to be too bright to figure that out. We are commanded to preach the truth in love. There is no room to compromise on the truth. We cannot compromise one principle of gospel truth; but we can be as uncompromising as God requires us to be, and still preach the truth in love.
Sometimes we Primitive Baptists preach as if the Primitive Baptists have a lock on sincerity. Sometimes we leave the impression that if you want to find sincerity, you will have to go to the Primitive Baptists to find it, because that is where sincerity is found. Brethren, that is not right. There are children of God in the denominational churches who are just as humble, just as sincere, just as God-fearing, as anybody you will ever meet.
There is a world of difference between that person who wilfully, and maliciously preaches falsehood, knowing all the while that what he is preaching is false, and those little sheep under his care, who are simply confused. Paul says, “Giving none offense in any thing that the ministry be not blamed.” During my ministry I have lost more sleep over the thought that by my way of presenting what I have to say I have injured some little child of God than I have ever lost for any other reason. I know I have been guilty. Sometimes I have inadvertently been guilty, but I have been guilty, nonetheless. Sometimes it was just through a slip of the tongue. I want to preach the truth in love as best I can, and I have no desire to set up any other person as a straw man, and have fun in ridiculing what he believes. How very careful we ought to be.
But having said all of that, we must insist that it is proper to defend the truth when it is challenged. We have an obligation to defend the truth, and while we have no desire to injure any little child of God, we can allow no compromise in defending the truth. We must stand firmly on those things the Bible teaches. There is enormous difference between defending the truth when it is challenged, and simply setting up the other person for the purpose of taking advantage of him. We must be ready to give an answer when we are asked. If somebody challenges the truth, we ought to be ready to answer that challenge. It is our purpose in this booklet to answer one of the challenges that are often brought against those who believe in salvation by the sovereign grace of God.
Perhaps, the most common challenge ever brought against the sovereignty of God is that God would be unfair if he did not give everybody a chance to be saved. Most of you have encountered that complaint at one time or another. If somebody hears that you believe in predestination, that is likely the first thing they say.
Think about that for a moment. Consider the audacity of anybody who would dare challenge God, and accuse God of being unfair. It is a small thing for us to challenge some other man, but for man to accuse his Maker, to bring God into the dock, and sit in judgment on God is the height of arrogance. That is what sinful man has wanted all along. That is what the serpent wanted in the garden. He said, “Yea, hath God said….?” He challenged the truthfulness of God. He said, “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Do you see? He was accusing God. Far be it from the creature to accuse his Maker of being unfair.
For that matter God would be completely fair if he had allowed the human race to run its course from the morning of time until the very last day, and never provided salvation for anybody. God did not owe salvation to anybody. He did not owe salvation to me, to you, nor to any other person. Paul said to the Romans, “For who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again.” Paul was saying, “Is there any of you who ever gave God anything. If there is, let him step forward, and God will pay him.” “Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again.” If God owes you anything, he will pay you. But God does not owe you anything. He does not owe you the very breath you are breathing. God would have been completely fair if he had never saved anybody.
Salvation is not based on chance in the first place. Chance is a gambling term. Various forms of gambling are referred to as games of chance. That expression is synonymous with gambling. Our salvation is not a game of chance. Our salvation is based on the firm and sure decrees of our Maker.
But, for the sake of discussion, let us consider this question of “an equal chance of being saved.” Salvation is not based on chance, but since somebody is forever bringing up the subject, let us consider the matter from that point of view, and see if their argument can survive on that basis.
Many years ago I heard one good brother say that, at some time between the cradle and the grave, everybody will have at least one chance to be saved. For the sake of discussion, let’s imagine that salvation is based on chance. Those who tell you salvation is based on chance will also usually tell you that in order to be saved you must hear the gospel and believe it, and you must repent of sin and turn from it. That is probably a broad enough statement to cover most of those who have that idea. Some of them insist that you must also “hold out faithful” until the end, that you must not lose your salvation once you get it. Others insist on adding water baptism to the formula. Some of them modify the formula one way, and some modify it another way, but all of them will usually agree that, as a minimum, you must hear the gospel and believe it, and that you must repent of sin and turn from it.
Now, I ask you, if those are the things that are necessary in order for any person to be born again, does everybody have an equal chance to be saved?
Let’s consider the possibilities. Here is one little fellow who is born into a godly home. His mom and dad love the Lord. They read their Bible regularly. They live godly lives. They do the very best they can to instill in his mind the principles they have learned from the Bible. The very first place he is taken, after he is old enough to be out of the house, is to church. And from then on it is twice every Sunday and every Wednesday night. Whether he wants to go or not, he is in church. He hears a lot more preaching than he really wants to hear. He gets to be about fifteen or sixteen years old, and he decides that he does not want to go to church today. His folks tell him, “It doesn’t matter, you get ready, you are going to church.” He may put up a fuss, but his dad tells him something on the order of, “As long as you are under my roof, and eat at my table, you are going to church when the rest of us go to church.” Some of you may have had that conversation with one of your children.
Sometimes somebody tells me, “Brother Hunt, I never have tried to force my children to go to church. I have always let them make up their own minds.” Why would you do anything like that? On Monday morning do you let them make up their own minds as to whether they go to school or not? Which do you think is the more important: reading, writing, and arithmetic, or faith, and repentance, and reading the Bible. I do not want to diminish the importance of going to school, but I certainly do not want to diminish the importance of keeping those little fellows in church, either. As long as they are under your influence, it is your place to have them in church on a regular basis.
But this little boy’s parents bring him to church every Sunday, and every Sunday night, and most every Wednesday night. Along about age fifteen he begins counting down. He starts telling himself something like, “In another two years, and eleven months, and fourteen days I will be eighteen, and then I will make up my own mind. Then I will decide for myself whether I want to go to church or not. I will make my own decisions.” And surely enough, he turns eighteen, and he quits going to church. He does not go back. In those eighteen years he heard a lot of preaching, and heard the Bible read a lot, but now he feels like he is old enough to make his own decisions, and he decides he has heard enough preaching to do him for a long time to come.
But in a few years he meets the prettiest little girl he ever saw. One thing leads to another, and before long they are married. The first Sunday after they are married he is sleeping in. He has just turned over for the second time, and he is ready to snooze for a while longer. About that time his wife comes to the door and says, “Breakfast is about ready, get up.”
He says, “I don’t think I want anything; I will just eat some cereal when I get up.”
She tells him, “Get up, it’s going to be time to go to church in a little while.”
He says, “I am not going. You go ahead, if you want to, but I don’t think I want to go.”
About that time she tells him, “Now you listen here, it is Sunday and I am going to church; I have always gone to church; so roll out of there; you have got to take me.”
He just thought he was old enough to make his own decisions. So for years to come he is in church every Sunday morning, and every Sunday night, and most every Wednesday night.
Now consider another little fellow. He is born into a wicked home. His parents are wicked. There is hardly anything they will not do. They do not go to church. They do not encourage him to go to church, and they had just as soon that he did not go. He uses the vilest language. From the time he is old enough to talk they teach him to use profanity. They think it is cute. He gets into every kind of meanness. He is about seventeen years old. He is drinking; he is on drugs. One night he is out with his buddies, and they get into a racket. One of them produces a gun, and a moment later he is lying in the street, dying. He has never been inside a church in his life, and he is lying there with his life slipping away.
Somebody tells me, “God is unfair if he does not give everybody an equal chance to be saved.” I would like for somebody to take the time to explain to me—if hearing the gospel is what gives a person a chance to be born again—how is it this little boy has the same chance as the first boy has?
Salvation is not based on chance. It is based on the sure and firm decrees of a sovereign God. God can and does reach right down into some of the most wicked of homes, and saves those whom he chooses to save. If it was based on chance those, who are born into wicked homes would have very little, if any, chance; but God sovereignly, irresistibly, sends his Spirit into the hearts of those he chooses to save, and no power on earth can stop him from doing what he chooses to do.
I have known children who were born into some of the most wicked of homes, who turned out to be very fine people. It was obvious that God’s Spirit lived in their hearts. No chance system would ever have reached them, but God’s Spirit did. And I have know some children who were born into righteous homes, who turned out bad. It works both ways.
God saves his people, and he does it without any help. God does not need the help of puny man to do his work. If God cannot do his work without our help, he certainly could not do it with our help. It takes a mighty arrogant attitude for anybody to think that after God has done the best he can to save sinners, and failed in the effort, we can pitch in and help him to do what he could not do without our help.
When God created the world, he took six days to do it. I am careful to say God took six days to create the world. That is not the same as to say that it took God six days to do the work. He could have created the universe in an instant of time, if he had wanted to, but, for some reason he spread the work out over six days. He created Adam on the sixth day. There are probably a lot of reasons God created Adam on the last day of creation, but one reason he created man last was so man could not take credit for any part of creation.
Then after God had done everything he intended to do, on the seventh day he rested. He did it all by himself. He created the universe all by himself—and then he rested. He rested because he had created all the worlds he intended to create. He could have created ten million worlds like this, if he had wanted to, without taxing his energies in the least. He did not rest because he was tired; he rested because he had finished the work. He went to Calvary and provided redemption all by himself—and when he arose from the dead, he ascended to heaven and sat down. Why did the Lord sit down when he ascended back to glory? He sat down because the work was done. That is what he said in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, “I have finished the work thou gavest me to do.”
The old Jewish priesthood was in many ways a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ. There were many ways in which the Old Testament priesthood was different from the Lord Jesus, our great high priest, but for the most part it was symbolic of his priesthood. There is a text in Hebrews chapter seven, talking about the Jewish priesthood. It says, “Every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices.”
I memorized that verse years and years ago, and I quoted it a lot of times before I noticed what it said. It is amazing how you can read a verse over and over, and still not see what it says. Notice that the priest STANDETH daily. For fifteen hundred years the Old Testament priesthood did their work standing up. Why did they do their work standing up? There were two reasons. First there was no place to sit down. There was no chair in the tabernacle. The reason there was no chair was that they did not need a chair; their work was never done. But Paul said, “For by one offering he [Christ Jesus] hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” After the Lord made that one sacrifice at Calvary he ascended to heaven and sat down. He sat down because the work was complete. By that one offering the Lord accomplished what the Old Testament priesthood could not accomplish with their thousands of offerings. God can do what he chooses to do. He can reach into the most wicked families and save those he chooses to save.
In 1917, in the Bolshevik Revolution the Communists took over Russia; they overthrew the Tsar and set up their own Communist regime, and over the next sixty or seventy years they very nearly conquered the world. They established Communism as an officially atheistic government. They outlawed God. They put up an iron curtain to keep God out of Russia. But they could not keep him out. Their scheme would not work. In the last three or four years we have seen Communism fall apart in Russia. It fell apart in the Eastern Block nations. It is falling apart all over the world. And no sooner did that Communistic regime fall apart than the world discovered untold numbers of people all over Russia hungering, starving, for the truth of the gospel. They are sending messages to America, saying, “Send us Bibles; come over here and teach us from the Bible.” We hear reports of people in previously Communistic countries who have a great appetite for spiritual things. They have lived for seventy years under an atheistic government, and now they do not know how they ought to behave themselves. They have no absolute standard by which to govern their lives, and many of them are crying out for just such a standard to tell them what is right and what is wrong. Something inside them teaches them there is such a standard. That is proof sufficient to show that God has been saving people in Communist Russia all the while.
But suppose salvation is really based on chance. Suppose the sinner must hear the preached gospel and respond to it in order to be born again. On that basis is there any way to show that, for the last seventy years, those people in Russia had an equal chance with people here in America? During those years when the gospel was outlawed in Russia, did they have an equal chance? When the Bible was outlawed, and preachers were outlawed, do you believe those people had an equal chance?
Salvation is not based on chance. It will take somebody with more power than Joseph Stalin, or Leon Trotsky, or Nicolai Lenin, or Karl Marx, and that crowd of Communists to keep God out of any country. During all those seventy years God reached down into Communist Russia and saved those he meant to save. A lot of those God saved do not know a lot about him. They don’t know his name. They don’t know what to call him. But they do know something has happened in their heart. A lot of them are worshiping God in a manner that we would not approve, but with the limited light they have some of them are searching for the truth, and trying to worship God.
During the conflict we call Desert Storm there were some terrifying stories that came out of Iraq, but there were some heart warming stories as well. There was one young woman who was interviewed on television just after the conflict started. All the Americans and Europeans were trying to get out of Iraq. The conflict broke out so quickly they had trouble leaving the country. They were getting out the best way they could. This young woman told how an Iraqi citizen had loaded several Americans and Europeans in a Land Rover and drove them across the desert to safety. She told how he went bouncing along at breakneck speed to get them out of the country. Sometimes they would be stopped by soldiers, and they would turn them back, but he would just go far enough to get out of sight, and then he would turn and head for the border again. As soon as he reached the border, he unloaded them and headed back for another load. They tried to pay him, but he did not want any money; he just wanted to help these people who were in great danger.
That man was very likely a Moslem. He was involved in a religion that does not recognize the God of the Bible. They call their God Allah. It is unlikely that he ever heard very many, if any, Christian sermons. He probably has no idea what the gospel message is.
That man could very well have lost his life trying to get Westerners out of Iraq. We have no way of knowing if he is alive today. If the most popular religious notion is right, if that man did lose his life in that heroic effort, he is burning in the flames of eternal damnation right now. He never heard the gospel message; he did not have an opportunity to respond to it, and now he is lost forever. I ask you, how can any right thinking person even imagine that such a system as that is fair. If that system is right, how can anybody imagine that man had an equal chance to be saved?
I thank God that system is not right. That man has more evidence that God’s Spirit lives in his heart than most of the people in our churches today. The preacher may not have reached him, but God’s Spirit did. People do not behave the way that man did unless they have been saved by the grace of God. You can be sure that God loves him; Christ died for him, and God’s Spirit lives in his heart. He may be confused in his religion, but he has the evidence that God’s Spirit lives in his heart. The wicked do not behave the way he behaved.
Joseph Stalin could not keep God out of Russia; Adolph Hitler could not keep him out of Germany; and Saddam Hussein cannot keep him out of Iraq. The puny efforts of man cannot hinder God, and they cannot help him. Salvation is not based on chance. It is based on the firm and sure decrees of God. It is based on the love, and mercy, and grace of God. Folks may complain that God is not fair, but you can be sure that God will save every person he intends to save, and all the most wicked regimes in the world will never be able to keep him out, nor to hinder him in his work.
Joseph Stalin was one of the most wicked men in this century. You hear more about Adolph Hitler than you do about Joseph Stalin. Adolph Hitler was just as mean as history says he was. He did the very best he could to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. He intended to rid the earth of Jews, and gypsies, and the mentally retarded, and any others that he considered undesirable. It was not just Jews; he attacked others as well. He killed millions and millions of people, just because he did not like them. You don’t hear as much about it, but Joseph Stalin did the same thing in Russia that Adolph Hitler did in Germany. He slaughtered millions of his own people in order to establish his regime.
Joseph Stalin thought he could keep God out of Russia. But in the middle 60’s, Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alleyeva, defected to the United States. The very first thing she wanted to tell when she arrived was her experience with the Lord in Communist Russia. Stalin could not keep God out of Russia; he could not keep him out of his own family. In spite of the wickedness of that terrible tyrant, God reached into Stalin’s own home and saved his daughter.
Almost four thousand years ago God told Abraham, “In thee shall ALL THE FAMILIES of the earth be blessed,” (Gen. 12:3). On other occasions he says that these blessings will reach “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and tribe;” but here he brings it down much closer. Here he says that every family of the earth will be blessed. Those who boast so much about their chance system cannot reach every family, but God can. There are any number of places in the world today where preachers are no longer allowed to go, but those tyrants who have expelled the preachers cannot expel God. God will still save his own, regardless of all the objections of the wicked. He could reach right into the family of Joseph Stalin, and save his little girl, and there is not a thing her daddy could do to stop him.
Several years ago a woman by the name of Madelyn O’Hare was upset, because of the prayers her little boy was hearing in school. She sued the school system to stop them from praying. She carried her case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and they ruled in her favor. She was determined to see to it that her little boy did not have to listen to those prayers. But little boys grow up. The last I heard, that little boy, whose mother was so determined that he would not have to listen to other people praying, was preaching what he understands to be the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His mother could carry her case all the way to the Supreme Court, but she could not require God to submit to their ruling. That Supreme Court ruling was an invalid ruling in the first place. God is the source of every valid human law. Any human law that is contrary to God’s law is an invalid law, and we are not required to recognize it. Mrs. O’Hare managed to get a Supreme Court ruling, but that ruling did not stop God; he saved the little boy anyway. If salvation was based on chance that little boy would not have had much of a chance, but salvation is not based on chance.
If salvation was limited to the very small number you and I can reach, there would be very few people saved. It is no wonder so many people believe there will be only a tiny number in heaven. In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord said, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13,14). But that is not talking about eternal heaven. That is talking about the strait and narrow pathway of obedience that some few of God’s children find and walk in right here in this life. There are not many of the children of God who enjoy the benefits they could enjoy in their service toward God, but that is not to say that there is only a tiny number that will see heaven.
When John described the family of God he said, “I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues.” The entire family of God is such a vast host that no man, and no group of men, could count them. They are as innumerable as the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea.
Years ago, when I was just a boy, I used to attend a Bible camp every summer. The lady who ran the camp was sent by an organization in Chicago to evangelize our people in the mountains of East Tennessee. One Sunday night she came to the church my family was attending, and she was allowed to make a little talk. She explained that “God has no hands, except your hands; he has no feet except your feet,” and so on. I was about eleven years old, and looked more like I was seven. I was very small for my age. I looked down at those little tiny hands, and those little tiny feet, and I thought, “If God does not have any hands except these hands, and no feet except these feet, he must be a very small god.”
I hear people talk about how God is doing the best he can, and he would do a lot better if he could just get better organized, if he could get better financed. He would do a lot better, if we would just help him. If people were not so tight with their money, they could hire a few more preachers, and send a few more missionaries, and God would do ever so much more than he is doing now.
When the mission program first got started, they used to quote figures as to how much it cost to keep a missionary on the field long enough to convert one soul. The first figure I ever heard quoted came from an old publication which dated almost from the beginning of that effort. At that time they figured that it cost just over five dollars. Five dollars was a lot more money then than it is now. At that time common laborers worked for about fifty cents a day. You can imagine how that was used to get people to turn loose of their money in the prospect of saving people from hell. With inflation the way it is, suppose that in today’s money it takes one thousand dollars to keep a missionary on the field long enough to save one soul. Let me ask you, if your money (whether it is five dollars or one thousand dollars) would help to save any person from eternal damnation, how could you in good conscience spend that money for anything else? Suppose you spend ten thousand dollars on a car trade. At today’s prices you will probably spend a lot more than that. But, if you would, you probably could have spent a thousand dollars on that old jalopy you were driving, and you could have made it last another year. You could have given that other nine thousand dollars to the mission program and that would have kept a missionary on the field long enough to save nine people from eternal damnation. How could you bear to ride around in that shiny automobile, knowing that, because you spent so much money on a car trade, nine people are going to burn in the flames of eternal damnation?
But perhaps you did not spend ten thousand dollars. Perhaps you bought an old, old car and you spent a lot less. The principle is the same. You could walk, if you had to. It would be better to walk to work than to spend money on any car trade that would have saved somebody from eternal hell. It would be better for most of us if we did more walking. You need your exercise, so you make a point of walking two miles every day, but then in the afternoon, your wife tells you that she needs a loaf of bread, and you get in the car and drive a quarter of a mile to the grocery store. It does not make a lot of sense. If giving money is what it takes to save souls from hell, there are a lot of ways we could save money to give to the program. But money will not get people into heaven, and it will not keep them out. 1 Pet. 1:18,19, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
How could you bear to spend money for anything? You spend twenty dollars for a new shirt. Fifty of those add up to a thousand dollars. Would it not be better to wear a shirt till it falls apart? If somebody’s eternal destiny depends on your money, should you not give every penny you can get your hands on to the program. A church spends thousands of dollars for new pews. For about ten dollars apiece they could have bought folding chairs. They may spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new meeting house. If they were really serious, they could just rent a meeting hall, and put all of that money into the program.
Consider some poor ignorant native in some faraway land. He has never heard the gospel. If he hears it, he might believe it, and repent, and (according to that system) be born again. Now consider some miserly, greedy, self-centered Christian in America, who has the money to give to the program so that somebody could go over there and preach to that man, but because the selfish Christian wants a shiny new car, or because he just wants to increase the balance on his bank statement, he does not give. If that is the case, it looks to me like the wrong person got punished. I believe the person who was so tight is the one who ought to suffer—if that system is right. Think about it. Is it fair that one person should burn in the flames of eternal damnation, because somebody else was stingy with his money.
Years ago I had a conversation with a good brother who believed that system. He was sure that a person must hear the gospel and respond to it in order to be born again. I presented some of the challenges that we have been considering. I asked him about some native in the jungles of the South Pacific, who had never heard the gospel. According to that system he has never had a chance to be born again. What will his destiny be if the preacher never reaches him? The brother decided that anybody in that condition would live in heaven, because he did not know any better. He had never had a chance to be saved, so he would be saved by his ignorance. After all, how could God send anybody to hell, if he had never had a chance?
But think about that for a moment. Here is a poor native who has never heard the gospel. If he dies in that condition, he will live in heaven, because he never had a chance. But now, the preacher reaches him. He presents him with the gospel message. He does not like what he hears, and he says, “Away with any such message; I don’t believe a word of it.” He has had his chance, and missed it. Now if he dies, he will be forever lost, because he heard the gospel message and rejected it. He was better off before the preacher talked to him. If that notion is right, we would do better to call all the missionaries home, and allow the rest of the world to live and die in their ignorance, and be saved by their not knowing any better. In fact, if that notion is right, we would probably do well to close all the churches here in America, and let our neighbors get to heaven the same way.
“The legs of the lame are not equal.” There is no way you can make sense out of that system. It is too self-contradictory. There is no way you can present it in such way as to show that God is in any way fair in his dealings with mankind. Those who accuse the doctrine of salvation by the sovereign grace of God with being an unfair system have it all wrong. It is the contrary system that is unfair.
In the book of Matthew, chapter twenty five, the Lord is talking about the final judgment. To many people that passage is one of the most terrifying passages in the Bible. I have talked to a lot of people who tell me how terrified they are of that final day, when all of mankind will stand before God and be judged. “When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on the left; then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation…….Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Just a few weeks ago I helped with the funeral of a good friend of mine. He and I used to work together. For several years we were in the insurance business. We were both struggling to raise our families. Neither of us was especially good at the job. We just managed to scratch out a living. He worked hard, always hoping to come up with enough business each week to survive a while longer. He came down with cancer this last January. He lived until the middle of August. I was with two denominational preachers in the funeral. I enjoyed getting acquainted with the preachers. I had a good conversation with one of them in particular.
The brother who had died had made a public profession of faith in Christ about two years before and had joined a denominational church. Both of those preachers had been closely associated with him during those two years. One of the preachers made a comment about what a fine man he had been. And that was right; he was a fine man; if he told you anything, you could believe it. The preacher went on to say that being such a fine person was probably what kept him from being saved much earlier than he was. Because he was such a fine man he did not see his need of the grace of God until just a few years before he died. The preacher was so alarmed about what might have happened. “What if he had died three years ago?”
He was a fine family man. I thought very highly of him, and I felt a great sense of loss when he died. We had not worked together for several years, but I still saw him very often. He got out of the insurance business, and started selling used cars, and for the last several years, he sold me most of the cars I bought. I always trusted him; if he told you anything you could believe it. He would tell you the good points about the car, and he would tell you the bad.
But, anyway, the preacher was alarmed at the thought the man might have died before he made that all-important profession, and that he would have burned in the flames of eternal damnation. There are a lot of people who have the idea that hell will be full of good, honest, kind hearted people who would give you the shirt off their back, but because they did not make that public profession, they are lost world without end.
We will notice in the next few lines that the Bible does not teach any such thing. Notice what the Bible does say about the matter. “The King shall say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; Naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
The Lord does not need anything you have—but his children do. This chapter is not telling what gains you a home in heaven. It is the suffering, and death, and imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ that saves people from eternal damnation, and gains them a home in heaven. This chapter does not say a thing about imputed righteousness. It is not talking about what gains you a home in heaven; it is giving a DESCRIPTION of those who are going to be in heaven. It is giving those characteristics which describe a child of God. He said the exact same thing to every person he set on his right hand. He told them, “I was an hungred and ye fed me; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink,” and so on. Every one of those on his right hand had compassion on his fellow man. No doubt, some of them had more compassion than others, but every person on his right hand was a caring, compassionate person.
Now turn to those on his left hand. “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee. Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”
Notice what he does not say. He did not say, “I was hungry, and ye did not give me enough.” He did not say, “I was thirsty, and ye did not give me enough.” He said, “I was hungry, and ye gave NO MEAT; I was thirsty, and ye gave me NO DRINK.” YOU WILL NOT FIND THE FIRST TRACE OF HUMAN KINDNESS IN ANY PERSON ON THE LEFT. There is a place of eternal damnation, a burning, flaming hell. The wicked will fill that place up, and they will be there in all eternity. But if you find any person who has compassion for his fellow man, you have found a child of God, and on that final day you will find him on the right hand of his Lord.
In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” The Lord does not identify his people by labels. He identifies them by description. You know a tree by its fruits. Here in the little town where I live there is a college. It has a nice little campus, and they have a lot of trees. They have little name plates on some of the trees. Most people can identify the more common trees. You do not need a nameplate to identify a pine tree, or an oak, or a maple, but there are some trees that you might not be able to identify without a nameplate.
Suppose you come up to a tree and it is loaded down with apples. Do you need a nameplate? I believe if I saw a tree loaded with apples. I would know right away that I had found an apple tree. And I can tell you that if you find somebody who bears this fruit—this fruit of kindness, and love, and compassion toward his fellow man—you have found a child of God.
In 1 John, chapter four, verse seven, the Lord said, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” Verses 20 and 21, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also.” If a man does not love his fellow man, he does not love God. But if he does love his fellow man, he does love God. They go together.
There may be somebody who will burn in the flames of eternal damnation that you love, but there will not be anybody there who loves you. The Lord says, “EVERY ONE THAT LOVETH IS BORN OF GOD, AND KNOWETH GOD.” As surely as you find a tree with apples on it you have found an apple tree, AND AS SURELY AS YOU FIND SOMEBODY WITH GENUINE LOVE FOR HIS FELLOW MAN YOU HAVE FOUND A CHILD OF GOD.
Paul said, “For our God is a consuming fire.” When I was a boy growing up in the foothills of East Tennessee, most everybody heated with coal. I am talking about a coal heater that sat in the middle of the living room floor. Nobody in the community where I lived had central heat. If you walked into the room, you did not have to ask anybody if there was a fire in the heater. If there was a fire in the heater, the fire inside would manifest itself outside. If somebody is born of the Spirit of God, you do not have to ask him if God’s Spirit lives in his heart. Our God is a consuming fire, and the fire in the heart of the child of God will manifest itself outside. The warmth of the Spirit of God living in the heart of an individual is not manifest nearly so much by a religious creed as it is manifest by a genuine concern for those around us.
There is an eternal burning hell, and the Adolph Hitler’s, the Joseph Stalin’s, the Saddam Hussein’s, and the Ted Bundy’s of this world will fill that place up. But you will not find anybody there who had genuine love, and compassion for his fellow man. If you find anybody who has genuine love for his fellow man you have found a child of God. He has that love because God’s Spirit lives in his heart. He is not a child of God, because he has those characteristics. It is the other way around. He has those characteristics because he is a child of God. Having apples does not make an apple tree, but it proves that it is an apple tree.
There may be those in this sinful world, perplexed with the sinfulness of our own nature, and confused by our own twisted thinking, who would dare to accuse God of being unfair, but you can be sure that in that eternal city, when everything will be made clear, there will never any such accusation made.
THE END