“Do the Japanese that have never been witnessed to really go to hell? Are they like the children that die before the age of accountability?”, she asked as her eyes filled with tears.
I replied, “They are adults that understand the difference between right and wrong. Romans 1:20 teaches that creation clearly reveals God and makes them without excuse. Romans 2:15 also teaches their God-given conscience accuses them.”
Still with tears, she whispered, “I thought they would be like those kids… I thought they would be ok…”
There was a long pause.
I said nothing.
Finally, I grasped the situation.
I had just finished preaching Isaiah 45:20-21. Idol worshipers pray to gods that cannot save, and this passage warns that there is no savior other than Christ. The young mother’s question revealed that she was beginning to understand a truth. A truth that many Christians have learned yet “forgotten”.
We were deeply impacted upon the revelation of this same truth, but after years of preaching, singing, Bible reading, church going, and witnessing with many rejections, this truth has been shoved down and silenced. We’ve hidden it in the deepest, darkest parts of our hearts and minds. Occasionally it creeps its way back into our conscious thought, and it drops us to our knees. It moves us to respond, to give, and to act! But every Monday morning comes with the same old aches and pains, our fears and frustrations, our jobs and classes: the routine. That truth that shortly resurfaced once again begins to disappear beneath the endless waves of life’s normal cares and concerns. Before long, we don’t even remember the feeling that brought us to tears.
So what is this truth that we’ve become so good at burying? What is it that we’ve put out of our minds? It is this: THE LOST GO TO HELL!
The tears of this woman and her imposing question reminded me of one sobering thought. Four Japanese people just went to hell.
