If God Only Gave His Law to Israel, How Will the Other Nations Be Judged?

If God only gave his law to Israel, how will the other nations be judged? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites. In fact, you can watch us right now live on YouTube and send us a message that way.

And of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to a voicemail we received from one of our listeners earlier this week. Good morning.

My name is Valerie. I just wanted to thank you for the program that you both do. It's been wonderful to listen. I look forward to each morning working and being in my courier van delivering and listen to the program. And my heart goes out to the many callers who have hurt and are dealing with different things and just the bravery that they're willing to share and just the wise wisdom.

I have never heard anything like this before. And I'm so grateful and God bless and just, it's a blessing to my life, and to my study and to my understanding of the word. And again, my heart just goes out to the callers who who share their heart and just, I'm always smiling when I hear questions and like wow, a lot of people were all basically the same. We have the same questions and concerns and validations that we need and you both truly are godly men with your wisdom and your encouragement. And thank you so much. And I am blessed to be honored to contribute financially helping when I can. God bless you.

Wow. Thank you, Valerie. That was Yeah, that's just really encouraging to hear as we open up the broadcast today. You know, as I listen to her, I'm realizing that she gets it. She understands what this program is really all about.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, the reason we do this is because we want to help people grow in their understanding of the Christian faith. And it sounds like for Valerie, that's been the case. And so I'm grateful to hear that you're encouraged, sister. And I just pray that the Lord continues to do that in the lives of many people. So thanks so much, Valerie.

Appreciate that. Let's go to Evan in Papillion, Nebraska. Evan, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

I have two related questions. Will those who are in hell, will they suffer forever? Or will they be destroyed after a period of time, you know, in accordance with what they've done? And a follow up to that, do you think whichever answer you say, do you think that doctrine is a core doctrine of Christian faith?

Or do you think there's enough ambiguity in the Bible to allow for people to hold either view? Thank you. Hey, yeah, I appreciate this question. I know that, you know, this is something that especially in recent days has come up more and more.

Just the doctrine of hell, of course, there are a lot of people who reject it altogether, the idea of punishment, eternal punishment. And then the question is, well, what does that does that look like? Is this unending torment? Or is it annihilation that is ceasing to exist? My position, Evan, is that there is this torment that takes place for all time. And I think there are going to be, you know, degrees of this.

I don't think it's going to be the same for every single person. Jesus talks about the judgment, how some people are going to be judged more severely than others, in particular those who knew intimately the truth and yet rejected it over and over again. And so this is going to be a just judgment. Obviously, all sin is sin against the eternal holy God.

And I do believe it's going to be an unending judgment. I think of what our Lord Jesus said in Mark chapter nine, verse 42. And if your foot causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell to the unquenchable fire. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And typically, you know, the descriptions, I mean, they're very vivid descriptions that you get in the New Testament from Jesus of hell.

Gehenna, you know, is referred to in that day. Very vivid descriptions, but one of the things that is often emphasized is just the unending nature of this existence. Is this a core doctrine? That is, there are some people who do believe in God's judgment for the wicked, but they would say it's not this unending torment.

It's annihilation. Are those people, is that view outside of the bounds of the Christian faith to such a degree that maybe we would say, well, that person, they can't be a believer and hold that view? I wouldn't say that, Evan. I think that this is something that genuine believers, people who belong to the Lord, believe in him, might wrestle through and have disagreement on. And so it wouldn't be like rejecting the deity of Christ or proper understanding of the Trinity, but that doesn't mean it's not an important subject for us to consider. And I am, as I said, persuaded when I look at the New Testament that there is this torment, this unending torment. It's not just annihilation, it's not just ceasing to exist, but it is this conscious existence apart from the presence of the Lord. And so, really a heavy topic as we enter into today's broadcast.

And so if you have follow-up questions, please do give us a call. But also something that I think is important, we have, one of the reasons I think so many people reject the doctrine of hell today is because we have such a low view of God and of his holiness. And I'm talking here about people who just say, well, there's no such thing as judgment at all. You know, everybody, we die and we go to some happy place, that kind of a thing. No, there is a just God in heaven who holds us accountable. We're going to stand before the Lord. Over and over again, you see this in the New Testament. And because I think in our society today, we have such a low view of God, a low view of his holiness, we just think, oh boy, how could that be a real doctrine, this doctrine of judgment, this doctrine of hell? Well, the issue is not so much, I think, recovering the doctrine of hell. I think it's recovering the doctrine of God's holiness.

That is so well said. I'm curious, the people that believe in this annihilationist view, how do they come to grips with Jesus's own words in the Gospels? Yeah, well, I mean, when you look at some of those texts, and I think typically they would just say, well, you know, Jesus is using vivid imagery, but we don't have to take that literally. So it's not like there's a literal fire, there's literal worms that just are there forever, that kind of a thing, as Jesus is using this very vivid language for destruction, for annihilation, for eternal annihilation, if you will.

So I think that that's the approach. And there are, as I said, I think people who know the Lord, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, who have that view, just like we can differ on a number of other views as Christians. That means that they're not genuine believers, but I also would disagree with that view. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We get a lot of calls on this program about the devil and his influence in our lives. Can he read our mind? What kind of power does he have on this earth?

And we actually have a great resource that answers many of those questions. Well, hopefully he doesn't have a lot of influence on our lives, but some more than others. And so because of that, we want to make sure that we understand what the Bible has to say about the devil. And we've, you know, oftentimes on this broadcast, as we're talking about spiritual warfare, we realize that people have a view of spiritual warfare in Satan that is more informed by the culture, maybe media, than it is by scripture. So that's why we've put together this resource, Can the Devil Read My Mind? 70 pages, a good amount there of information that will give you a thorough understanding of what the Bible says about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. And so get a hold of this booklet for free over at corechristianity.com. One of the cool things about the booklet, it actually talks about how we engage in spiritual warfare, how we protect ourselves from the influence of Satan. Yeah, absolutely. Really important. I mean, the third chapter is called Resisting the Devil.

And so it's not just sort of heady information that's not practical. You're going to get some practical tips here for what it looks like for us to resist the devil in our own lives as followers of Christ. Once again, that's a free resource.

It's a download. You can find it by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers, corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Look for Can the Devil Read My Mind?

Well, let's go to a voicemail we received from one of our callers named Benjamin. I have a question that's always been dwelling on me. Let's say Old Testament rules and people who never knew the law, let's say like the Mayans or anyone who never had a chance to come to Christ. Were they, even though they were born and they did good, they didn't know Christ, are they destined for hell? Because technically they didn't know God and they didn't follow the Ten Commandments.

And so I'm just curious as to how that would be fair that they were put on the earth and they never knew Christ and they were destined for hell. All right. Thank you. Bye. Hey, Benjamin. Excellent question.

And I know you're not the only one with that question. Yeah. How do we make sense of this, right? Like people who, especially you think of the time of the Old Testament, all the people that lived on the earth and who did not have the law of God delivered to them. Well, in one sense, we would say, Benjamin, that everyone did have the law that is just through nature, maybe not directly given to them on Mount Sinai as the children of Israel did. But I think of what the apostle Paul said in Romans chapter five, verse 12, he said, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sinned for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

And he's going to go on and talk about Jesus, the second Adam who came bringing his gift of righteousness. But the idea there is the world in one sense was still under law. That's why death continued to reign because we continued to sin. And when you think about this, especially the early chapters of the book of Romans, it makes it clear that all mankind, just by nature, know that there's a creator. It's this sense of God that we all have. The psalmist in Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge. That is, God speaks to us through the creation around us. We have this sort of natural law that's within us that we continue to sin against, that humanity continues to sin against.

And so we're justly judged on that basis. A couple of other passages that I think of, though, Benjamin, one is found in the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 14, you have this interesting text where you have Paul and Barnabas, and a group of people are wanting to worship them because they've just performed a miracle. And their response is, in verse 16, in past generations, he, God, allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. So this idea that God, even for these pagan nations, was revealing himself, giving the entire world this sort of common grace, rain, a sense of his goodness. And so we all have this sense of God, Benjamin, and just by virtue of the fact that we have that, we are justly judged by the Lord for rejecting that truth.

Paul in Romans 1 says we choose to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. And so we talked a little bit about judgment, God's judgment, with the first question about hell there. And so is there going to be a different kind of judgment, maybe a different severity of judgment for these people who didn't have the level of light revelation as the Israelites?

So I think so. I think that there's a reason to believe that on the basis of what we see in scripture. But we know that God's judgment is going to be just no matter what, that there isn't going to be any complaining on the day of judgment, people saying this is not fair.

No, it's going to be perfectly just because God is perfectly righteous. And so when it comes to the nations of the world, God did reveal himself in some sense. And yet people still continued to reject that. And as you said, worshiping the created rather than the creator. And isn't that a great example of what's happening in today's culture?

Yeah. I mean, you know, we sometimes think, you know, well, those pagan societies bowing down to little figurines or statues that they built. We don't do that. We're so civilized today. No, we just worship money and possessions and our looks. And we have all sorts of other things that we bowed down before in our own way. And so.

So, yeah, I mean, it's happening today. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here is the phone number if you'd like to ask a question regarding the Bible or the Christian life. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also email us your question at questions at core Christianity dot com. Here's a question from Daniel. He says, Hello, Pastor Adriel and Bill. Thank you so much for the ministry you do.

I'm a listener from the Philippines and I've learned so much from your program. Pastor Adriel, I understand you do not believe the gift of tongues is for today. I believe the same thing.

However, I know people who I believe are truly Christian but have spoken in tongues. Would you have an explanation for that? Yeah. Well, I mean, there's only so much that we can say there.

Right. I think I think we wouldn't want to if somebody came to us and and, you know, we we trust that they know the Lord, that they love the Lord. And they say to you, boy, you know, the Lord, I was I was sick and I prayed that the Lord would heal me and he did heal me. Or I had this experience. You know what I'm saying? I don't know that we need to say, no, that didn't happen. You know, you're you're crazy.

You're drinking bathwater, that kind of a thing. And this is it's hard to be able to just say to make a judgment in that situation. I think what we can do is go to places like First Corinthians 14, where the apostle Paul talks about the gift of tongues. And he talks about the purpose of the gift of tongues. Same same with Acts chapter two. I mean, the Book of Acts written by by Luke and and compare what we see in scripture with what we often see today and where we see contradictions.

Right. Where we see things that are not biblical or not in line with scripture. I think we can begin to ask questions and say, well, hey, you're you're saying this. And yet it seems like in the New Testament, the gift of tongues, what were these real languages that people would speak that they didn't know? And often, like Paul says in First Corinthians 14, that there needed to be an interpreter there to interpret the language, this unknown language, so that others could be edified as well. And that's the kind of thing that I just don't hear about very much today at all. I think some people will say, oh, you know, I'm a believer and I have this kind of special private thing that I do, but it doesn't really affect anyone else.

That kind of thing. Well, in the New Testament, Paul says we should strive to do all things for the edification of the body, of the whole. And so I don't think, you know, when you when you have these situations that you need to you need to be, you know, combative and try to get in a big old argument. I think it's fine to listen, to be charitable and then to compare whatever it is that you hear with what the Bible teaches. And so thank you for for that question.

Hopefully that's helpful. And thanks for listening in the Philippines. We really do appreciate it. We've got a lot of international listeners here and many of them actually watch us on YouTube.

And you can watch us on YouTube every day, Monday through Friday at eleven thirty a.m. Pacific time. Kristen has sent in a question via YouTube and she says, my dad passed away this month. He was a believer, but it got me thinking about what heaven will be like. Will it be like the world, but perhaps just perfect, like the garden?

Yeah, well, the new creation, which we're looking forward to. So right now, when a believer dies, immediately their souls are in the presence of the Lord. They're made perfect in holiness. There's great joy in the presence of God.

And Kristen, I just want to say to you, I am I'm sorry to hear about your father's dying, but we want to pray that the Lord would comfort you. We do have that hope that when a believer, as I said, dies, they're in the presence of the Lord, made perfect in holiness. And that really is something we see in scripture. We see in Hebrews chapter twelve, you know, the saints around God's throne together with the angels, worshiping the Lord there with Christ. We see this also in the book of Revelation. You want some clear pictures of heaven and the worship that's taking place in heaven.

Boy, we have that. Revelation chapter five in particular, you have this song that's being sung, Worthy are you to take the scroll to open its seals to Jesus, praising Jesus, for you were slain. And by your blood, you ransom people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priest to our God.

And they shall reign on the earth. And I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. This is worship. It's the most beautiful worship that you could ever imagine.

But we're still waiting for you. So you have that taking place in heaven right now, but we're looking forward to the final resurrection, the restoration of all things, including this world that we live in. That's the new creation. And so we're looking forward to living in the glorified new creation.

It's the picture that we get at the very end of the Book of Revelation. And so your dad belonging to Jesus is in perfect peace in the presence of the Lord. And we get to look forward to being together as the people of God in the new creation on the final day. And so let me just quickly, Kristen, pray for you and just ask that the Lord comfort you in this time. Father, we know just the pain of death in this world and there is sorrow, Lord. And I pray for my sister, Lord, that as she mourns and feels sorrow and pain, that you would also fill her with great hope in the knowledge of your son and what he's accomplished for us in his conquering death for his people. Well, God, thank you that though we sorrow, we don't have to sorrow as those who have no hope, as your apostle said. So I pray that you would fill her with your spirit, that you would comfort her, that you would bless her, Lord, as she studies your word and draws near to you. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our live program is going to wrap up here in about five minutes, but we do want to continue taking calls today.

We're going to be recording an extra broadcast. So if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology, how your faith intersects with culture, feel free to give us a call right now. Here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

We'll be taking calls for the next 35 minutes or so at 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Candy in Ozark, Missouri. Candy, what's your question for Adriel? Hello. Hi, Candy.

Yes. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi, Candy.

What's your question? Okay. I am very elderly and I have been a Christian since I was 12. I was baptized and I have been in the church all these years. I am just wondering about the scripture in the Bible. It's Acts 4 and verse 12.

And it says salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven to make to mankind by which we must be saved. And I just wondered. There's so many churches and they wear different names and it causes division. I mean, that bothers me. Yeah.

Well, dear sister, God bless you and thank you for giving us a call. And let me just say to you that that bothers me as well. I mean, it is sad that there is so much division in the church. Jesus himself said the world you will know that you are my disciples by your love for each other.

So the division affects our testimony to the world around us. We really ought to be united around the one, Jesus and his gospel. And that's what Acts chapter 4 verse 12 is getting at, that there is salvation in no one else. That what unites us is the salvation, the grace that we have in Jesus Christ. That it's only by his name that we experience the salvation of God. Jesus himself said, Candy, in John chapter 14 verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

And that's the reality. That's what we see throughout the Bible. If we want grace, it comes through no one else except Jesus. And we need Christ. We need Christ together.