Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb19991031.htm

BASIC CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS: DEFENDING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Part III: Answering The Objection Against Christianity Regarding The "Unreached Heathen"
(Acts 17:26-30 et al.)
  1. Introduction
    1. One of the most common objections against the Christian faith is expressed in the following question: "If Christianity is the true faith, how could its alleged loving God then limit its gospel only to developed Western Civilizations and skip reaching so many unreached Third World people groups?"
    2. We look into Scripture first and then to experiences which confirm Scripture's teaching for the answer:
  2. Answering The Objection Against Christianity Regarding The "Unreached Heathen", Acts 17:26-30.
    1. Scripture reveals God both longs for all humans to be saved and actively seeks to reach them as follows:
      1. God does not want any to perish without Christ, but for all individuals to be saved, 2 Peter 3:9b.
      2. Accordingly, God works through the Church and also the Holy Spirit to reach the world for Christ:
        1. Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28:19-20 show God uses the Church to testify the Gospel to the unsaved.
        2. However, God also witnesses directly to individuals by means of the Holy Spirit: (a) Not only the "Bride", the Church, but also the "Spirit" says the evangelistic "Come" to the lost according to Revelation 22:17. (b) John 16:7-11 reveals the Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. (c) John 1:9 teaches Christ is the Light who shines unto every individual as a witness.
        3. God uses nature itself to testify of His presence and godhead so that no thinking unsaved individual in the world is without excuse, Romans 1:18-20. Additionally, Acts 17:26-30 shows God is not far from every unsaved person on earth to reveal Himself should one seek God, and God has ordered the geopolitical boundaries and historical ages to create a thirst for Himself in every person on earth.
    2. We have many testimonies of this outreach to Third World and civilized people. Here are a few samples:
      1. God's outreach to "unreached" Third World peoples:
        1. Ray Davis, former missionary to Ethiopia whom I knew and trusted as a child in Nigeria, in his book, The Winds of God, p. 71-72, reported on the testimony of an old Ethiopian named Maja. Though comatose, had "died" according to the witchdoctor, so they prepared his body for burial and lashed it to a stretcher. However, in that position, Maja saw a vision of a person dressed in white, holding a Book. "You will not die," the person told him. "One day someone will come with a message from this Book." The old man reached out his hand, saying, "Give me that Book!" He had come out of a coma and shouted out his words while reaching fro m the stretcher, terrifying those around him. Years later, in 1950, Alex and Theresia Fellows, missionaries with SIM to Ethiopia, entered Maja's village and taught the people from the Bible. Maja approached them and said, "Now that you have come with the Book, I want to hear the message." Maja accepted Christ when given the gospel.
        2. Davis reports (p. 57) of a prophetess in witchcraft who once made a prophecy to a man named Dafarsha. She cast pebbles on the ground and said, "My son, you are coming to the end of a long journey . . . later you will hear good news, news that will spread over all these mountains." That news was the Gospel, and Dafarsha was later led to Christ by a native evangelist, Laliso.
      2. God also is not far from lost civilized peoples, either: Sylvia Baker, Master in Applied Science (Bone of Contention: Is Evolution True?, p. 19-20) reports of her education that was steeped in humanism and atheistic evolution. Though a believer, Sylvia had come to believe firmly in evolution because of her educational environment. While attending the University of Sus sex in Australia, her professor once asked the class to discuss how the vertebrate eye might have evolved. After much deliberation, the class found it impossible to supply an answer , so Sylvia merely suggested that perhaps it had not evolved! Immediately the professor and her classmates began to isolate themselves from her and critique her for her creationist view! However, Sylvia had not even mentioned God! Their reaction exposed to Sylvia an awareness of God in nature that had been suppressed in her colleagues as Romans 1:18-20 reveals. Beginning there, Sylvia came to adopt the pure Creationist model of origins.
      3. We conclude from experience if anyone wants to know God, God will get him the Gospel in his lifetime.
Lesson: Regarding the "heathen who have never heard" the Gospel, not only the Church, but God HIMSELF is actively pursuing ALL individuals on earth so that NO man has an adequate EXCUSE for not getting saved. If anyone wants to know God, God will get him the gospel before his death ("Maja").