The question of what happens to the unevangelized is one that troubles both seekers and Christians alike. As I mentioned in my introductory article ("How these Accounts of Miracles can offer Hope to You"), it is the reason that Pat, though God saved his physical life miraculously, still struggles to believe Jesus died for his sins. I admit that a part of me hopes that God is merciful to people who don’t hear the same preaching some of us do- maybe this comes from my desire for Him to be merciful to me! Which He has been!
But I think I honestly have to lean towards saying that these people will go to hell. Why? There is no clear teaching in the Bible that points towards God pardoning them. And there are some clear teachings suggesting that He might not. Romans 2 is clear that those who would either judge someone else or even try and clear themselves by the reasoning of their own conscience are certainly guilty of breaking their own law and therefore guilty before God. (Maybe this passage allows someone could excuse themselves by never judging others. But I think the chances of someone doing that on their own are infinitesimal). I also think that assuming people who don’t hear preaching are damned to hell motivates the church to work hard to continue making disciples of all nations and being witnesses to the ends of the earth.
What encouraging teachings there are in the Bible, however, are signs that God does send a preacher in many cases. Here is my summary: God had Noah preach for hundred years before He destroyed the world with a flood. God was not going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if there were 5 righteous people living in the city, and He even sent angels into the city- perhaps if these angels were welcomed maybe they would have been able to share the message of repentance with the city. God sent Moses to Pharaoh and even before that He sent Joseph to Egypt. God sent people to Rahab before Jericho was destroyed. God drew the Queen of Sheba to Solomon. God sent Jonah to Nineveh. God sent Daniel to the Babylonians and left Nehemiah around for the Persians. God drew the Magi to Jesus. God gave Cornelius a dream and sent Peter. God stopped Paul in his tracks (even though Paul had heard preaching about Jesus and chose to persecute those who practiced it - Paul said he was zealous for God but ignorant and prays that God gives grace to those of his people who are in the same boat).
Beyond that, I want to share with you some miracles about how God has sent different messages about Jesus to people that I know who didn’t yet have sufficient preaching in their lives. Before I do that, though, we simply don’t know about the other cultures not mentioned by the Bible. I do have a Lakota friend who is Christian and who gave me a book speaking of how Jesus fulfilled prophecies in their own culture that are included in a way of life called The Blue Road. I have a Chinese friend who is a Christian who says that little hints of the Gospel are hidden within Chinese characters. These friends have suggested to me that their cultures knew of Jesus, albeit just generally, since long ago. And when they learned HIs specific story and Name, they could say that He is the answer to those expectations within their cultures. It may be that God has given some kind of message to all people to at least prepare them for preaching about Christ. And this, as well as the Biblical accounts and my miracle stories, should encourage us to go and preach! Join with me in supporting the work somehow (in praying, in equipping, in giving, or in going).
My first miracle is one about a friend from school’s family story. Well, I became friends with her, but she was my close friend’s girlfriend and they got married. I’ll just call them Mike and Martha. Obviously made up names since Martha isn’t too Middle Eastern of a name! But Martha is from a rather closed Middle Eastern country via a European one, and now she lives in the good ‘ol USA. She was the first in her family to come over here, and she came to attend school. But the reason she and some of her family left their homeland for Europe was because they converted to Christianity. And how they converted to Christianity is because Martha’s father had a dream about Jesus. Martha’s father was even then an ardent lover of God. But what he knew about God was what was taught by Islam. Since he lived in such a closed country, perhaps, God blessed him with a dream in which Jesus told him that He is God. I don’t know many more details than that. But I have no reason at all to not trust this man who risked the his life and his family to embrace the truth about Jesus! I have met him because he and his wife have been allowed to come to the USA as well. This was back quite a few years ago. I met Martha in the early 2000’s, and the dream had to be perhaps even a decade or two before that.
Years later it has come to light that many Muslims in closed off countries have had dreams about Jesus. The cases are becoming well documented and I am confident that you could find info about many cases through good old google or the equivalent.
God is just. We know that. And God is merciful. The extent of His mercy might surprise us. Because how wonderful is it that He gives such dreams! Again, I think we can pray more and more for God to reach the lost with the Gospel, and in addition to prayer we can do what God leads us to to help in other ways as well. I think God wants to answer those prayers for us and to work through us mightily.
One way those of us who live in the USA can work for this goal (that I learned from Martha and Mike, in fact) is to preach to those internationals who are sent here for one reason or another. International students are one large category, as are refugees. My next miracle has to do with an international student who I was able to share the gospel with.
Oscar was someone who I stopped on the college campus I was serving at to introduce myself and let him know that I would be happy to help him get acclimated to life in the Utah, since he was an international student from China. He took me up on that offer in a couple of ways. One way was to have me help him get his driver’s license. He is very resourceful and had much of the details worked out. He even fairly quickly bought his own vehicle. But before that, I let him drive mine and gave him some pointers about traffic laws and driving styles in Utah. In addition, Oscar wanted to practice speaking English. I was holding a Bible study with some other Christians and seekers, both American and international. He came and kept coming back for practicing English. But he admitted that, while he didn’t believe in a God, that he found a lot of the lessons in the bible profound, and came for those lessons as well. While I and the other Christians in the group tried quite diligently to explain the Gospel the best we could (to Oscar and the other seeking internationals), I never know how much the message got across. There is of course still some language barrier, even though they all are smart enough to learn English, and, beyond that, probably an even larger cultural barrier. Anyway, as time went on, Oscar and I became genuine friends (like good neighbors). We would go to basketball games together frequently. And I’m not sure if Oscar has yet believed in Jesus.
But a few months after Oscar heard the Gospel at the Bible study, another mutual friend of ours who wasn’t part of the Bible study but who is Christian came up to me. She told me that a few days prior, she felt burdened to pray for Oscar. I later that week saw Oscar. He told me how he was at an auto shop earlier last week getting his car maintenance done. He says a Chinese man came up to him and started to share with him, in Chinese, about Jesus. This being Utah, I was quite concerned that the man was LDS and not Christian. I asked Oscar what the man shared. And Oscar repeated what was an accurate explanation of the Gospel - Jesus died for our sins and came back to life and if we believe in Him we are saved from our sin. I encouraged Oscar that that is what I too believe and asked Oscar what he thought. He said he still didn’t believe in God.
I’m hopeful someday God may lead Oscar all the way to Him. But it is clear God has given Oscar the chance even though he had not heard about Jesus until he was a grown up college student!
One final miracle I can share about this specific topic is a very recent one for me. I am now an “essential worker” who works at a food processing plant. During the pandemic, the company has hired extra temporary workers to come inside the factory and sanitize the high-contact areas. One of these workers who was on my shift frequently is named Virg. Virg was born in the jungles of southern Mexico. He is Aztec and speaks very broken english as well as broken Spanish. His native language is Aztec. After a few weeks of getting to know each other the best we could, he got news that his daughter who lives in Mexico was sick. I told him I would pray for her, hoping he would understand. He most certainly did! He thanked me and added that he had been praying much. He went on to share how it wasn’t until he was already divorced from his first wife that a missionary came to his village in Oaxaca. He was actually quite sick. The missionary prayed for him and he had been healed. He came to faith shortly after that and reports that the presence of the missionaries and the formation of some evangelical churches has really improved the moral and spiritual climate of his village.
This is man who had to wait until very ill and grown with the past of a divorce before God worked in his life to even introduce Himself. But He did!
I think God answers our prayers when we pray for those who don’t know Him! Even if sometimes it is just for a general people group or just for the unevangelized in general. I have to believe God is not only just but quite merciful! Let’s press in by praying more and more and laboring more and more in the ways He leads us to! If you aren’t a Christian, become one and join with us in reaching the lost! Experience the miracles for yourself!
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