Written by: Hector
For quite a while now I have been walking with the question that how can it be fair that some get to hear the gospel each day of his life and then there are others that never got the chance to hear it before they die. Do these two individuals have the same chance of being saved?
And now as I travel around in the east the question just becomes bigger. People grow up in a certain religion and are taught since youth what gods they should worship. Many carve themselves sculptures and then worship this. There seems to be a natural tendency to worship something.
Now how can you say that these people as well as all those who don't believe in any deity at all got the same opportunity to be saved than us, being brought up in a Christian home and got many opportunities to receive Jesus as our personal saviour.
Then I discovered that the Bible actually deals with this exact issue in the letter that Paul wrote to the Romans.
r Romans 1:18-25
For God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of those who in their wickedness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes-his eternal power and divine nature-have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their ignorant hearts were darkened.
Though claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that looked like mortal human beings, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. r
For this reason, God gave them over to impurity to follow the lusts of their hearts and to dishonor their bodies with one another.
They exchanged God's truth for a lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
The key verse for me is, "they served the creation rather than the creator". It can also be explained with the parallel of a painter and his painting. If you look at a painting how can you deny the existence of the painter. Surely someone must have "created" the painting. And to go even further, would you give the credit to the painting itself rather than to the painter. No, you would admire the painting and then compliment or credit the painter.
It is likewise with the creation and God. The beauty and majesty of creation reflects the beauty and majesty of God. So no one who looks at creation can use the excuse that didn't know there is a Creator and has therefor worshipped the creation.