Wherefore, remember that ye being
in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that
at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise,
having no hope and without God in the world. Now we use that
just to begin and then spread and enlarge our study and our
scripture. Let me begin by a short introduction. Let me say that there are two
things that are exceedingly troublesome to many that profess Christianity. There are two issues that really
give some a lot of trouble, especially those who are of the Arminian
persuasion. By that I mean those that hold
to universal atonement, hold diligently to the free will of
man, human ability, and preach and believe in a universal love,
and so forth, but who on the other hand reject the sovereignty
of God, they reject God's sovereign and immutable and unchanging
purpose, and God's immutability they deny. Also, they deny original
sin, they deny total depravity, and they deny particular redemption. And because of that, they have
a problem. And because they cannot seem
to satisfy themselves from the Scripture or reconcile these
two matters that I'm going to mention under the Scripture,
then they have sought to invent other solutions to their problem. And in both of these matters,
they contradict the Scripture that they might invent a solution
to their satisfaction that they can be comfortable holding to
and preaching. And in both cases, it removes
the offense of the cross and the Word of God, and these matters
come up and allow them a soft landing, for that's what they're
looking for. Now, you say, what are the two
matters? Well, the two matters or subjects
are, number one, infant salvation, and number two, pagan or pagan
salvation. In the case of the first infants,
young children, the underage, they cannot meet the criteria
that is held by the Arminian of faith and repentance, which
they everywhere declare are necessary prerequisites to one coming to
and knowing Christ. So the very young are incapable
of these things. They are incapable of faith or
of repentance. Now, because they deny original
sin, they have invented, have you ever heard this, an age of
accountability because they deny original sin. This is not our
subject today except to say If the very young are saved, it
is not because they are born without sin. The Arminian would
have a much firmer foundation for his infant salvation if they
built upon divine election and the particular atonement of our
Lord and Savior. For these are the two great principles
on which the salvation of sinners does stand. But we come to our
question of the day. What about the heathen? Them
that sit in darkness, Isaiah 42 and verse 7. To them that
were once afar off, as our text said in Ephesians 2 and verse
11. What about those who have no
spiritual saving revelation from God? What about those who of
old were not the people of God? Isaiah 65 and verse 1 and Romans
chapter 10 and verse 21. that sought not God, but were
consumed with their idols and their idolatry. So, what then
about the heathen? Are they lost or are they saved? Are they lost even if they never
hear the gospel, never read from the Holy Bible, never hear of
Christ and His great salvation, or is there another way and a
shortcut for them to be saved? For example, Can they observe
creation in all of its wonder and there say to themselves,
well you know, there must be a God behind all of this. But will God be charitable to
the times of their ignorance? Will they avoid hell because
no one told them about Christ or preached unto them the gospel? You know, there are some. You'll
hear these Arminian preachers say that their blood is upon
the hand of the Christian churches because they have not sent out
missionaries everywhere to preach them the gospel. Now, pardon
a personal example here early. But I remember something vividly,
I don't guess I'll ever forget it. It happened a lot of years
ago, probably 40 years ago. And I was in a meeting and I
heard a preacher say something like this. that if a person had
never heard the gospel, never heard of Christ, never heard
of the way of salvation, that such a person was not condemned
even if they were 80 years old. Well, that got me, and after
the service, I went up to him and I talked to him about it.
I said, what is this? Thou bringeth forth strange things
unto our ear. He said to me, oh, I was knocking
out the age of accountability. And I said to him, my God, man,
I think you've raised it to 80 instead of knocking it out. So
some would say one is not guilty until or unless they hear. Then, if they hear and reject
the gospel, then they are guilty. Though this view has pretty much
fallen out of favor with those preaching today. But if it were
true, it would be to their benefit then to withhold the gospel and
keep back the message of Christ. They would be better off that
way than rejecting it. But let's go back to Ephesians
2, verse 11 and 12, and consider for a bit Paul's description
of the former condition of the Gentiles. Now, this was their
former condition. before Christ brought in the
new covenant and made the great sacrifice. And look here and
see that Paul makes our names a five-fold deprivation in regard
to their state at the time their time passed. In Ephesians chapter
2, Paul shows the badness of the situation of the Gentiles
from two aspects in this second chapter. Number one, he speaks
of what they were by nature. That's up in verses 1 through
verse 3. What were they by nature? or
by birth. They were exceedingly sinful,
but God had quickened them by His grace and by His mercy. Secondly, in verse 11 and following,
He deals with them for what they were by nationality. First by nature, then by nationality. And by both of those, or by nationality,
they were a far off For Christ brought them near, down in verse
17 and verse 13. Now here was their condition
as heathen or as Gentile in time past in the flesh. That is, by
birth or by nationality. The Jews used a very derisive
epithet calling them the uncircumcised. You see it there in our text.
Well, look at that five-fold deprivation of Paul, names concerning
the heathen, in days gone by. A. At that time ye were without
Christ. They were ignorant of Christ,
ignorant of a coming Savior. They had neither the hope nor
the promise of a Messiah. They had not the types to practice
of the one that was to come and be the fulfillment of them. In
other words, They, at that time, were separated from Christ. Now, B, we notice, they were
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. The concordance shows
this word twice in the New Testament. It is commonwealth here in the
King James. And here Paul uses it also of
himself in Acts 22 and 24. And the word politia refers to
one's citizenship, that one is a citizen. It means to be a townsman. It means to be a resident, a
legal citizen, an incorporated district, literally a citizen. They were not a citizen of the
Jewish commonwealth. Now Paul uses it to say that
he was born a citizen and that he was citizen by birth. He refers
to his Roman citizenship when he had been beaten in Acts 16
and verse 37. And Paul's Roman citizenship
conferred on him certain rights throughout the Roman Empire that
were not to be violated, such as they were exempt from degrading
punishments. Two, the right to appeal their
case unto Caesar and be heard in the highest court. Three,
a right to be tried in Rome, if charged with a capital offense,
to appear with their case before the emperor himself. And that's
what Paul did. He said, I appeal unto Caesar. The commonwealth of Israel was
that commonwealth or that government or that citizenship established
by God, yet not for all of the world. All of the world was not
included, but God had a chosen race. God revealed Himself to
them. He put His worship among them. And the Gentiles, as the Scotsman
John Eadie wrote, were destitute of religious privileges, knowledge
of God, modes of accepted worship, the oracles of God, and of priests
and of sacrifices, unquote. They had none of those. What's more, see, they were strangers
from the covenant's promise. Now, strangers here is a foreign
or an alien one. They knew nothing of the covenant
made at Mount Sinai. They knew nothing of the eternal
covenant which would bring Christ into the world. or the covenant
made with Abraham that promised temporal and spiritual blessings
unto his children. Then notice something else. It
gets worse. They were without hope. Having
no hope, being hopeless, no firm hope of deliverance from their
sin, no hope of a redeeming Messiah or of eternal life and salvation. How awful it is to be absolutely
without hope. Consider what we read in Acts
27 and 20 in describing the great storm at sea that overtook Paul
when he was on his ship journeying to Rome that his case might be
heard. The author tells us this, quote,
and when neither sun nor stars appeared in many days and no
small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved
was then taken away." To be without hope is to be in deep despair,
to see no way out of a dilemma, to see no solution for the problem. And the Gentiles were a people
in time past without hope in the spiritual sense. Then to
cap it all off, we notice then E, They were without God in the
world. They were godless, is how we
might say that. They were with all of their idols
and their deities, yet were they godless in the world. They did
not know the God of heaven. Now let's say two things about
this matter in order that we might be clear. Number one, let's
not misunderstand. It was not that they had neglected
to avail themselves of the things of God. Being without Christ
does not mean that they had rejected Christ or refused to accept Jesus,
as we hear the term today. Being godless does not mean that
they had turned away from the things of God offered unto them. What Paul is saying is that they
had no spiritual saving revelation of salvation. He says, in effect,
they had nothing necessary to salvation and spiritual happiness
among them. Now the second thing we want
to say, this was according to the sovereign design and eternal
purpose of our great God. God left them for centuries without
the true saving knowledge of himself. And what Paul says,
they should remember this wretched state as Gentiles as contrasted
with the Hebrew theocratic privileges that they as a people had enjoyed. God chose a nation for himself
and his name. And he separated them from the
rest of the world. exacted what Paul calls, erected
what Paul calls a middle wall of partition between the Jew
and the Gentile. That's in Ephesians, the second
chapter also. One version renders it like this,
the dividing wall of hostility. There was a dividing wall of
hostility between the Jew and the Gentile. Of course, this
was Not a literal wall, it wasn't a literal wall around the nation
or a petition, but Paul calls the wall a petition. And notice what he says it consists
in. The law of commandments contained
in ordinances. Ephesians 2 and 15. Or the commandments of God consisting
in decrees. the commands of regulation. By these God did put enmity,
and I mean deep and abiding enmity between the Jew and the Gentile. You read of that enmity also
in Ephesians chapter 2. Deep hostility lay on both sides,
the Jew and the Gentile. And the Jews considered them
unclean, uncircumcised, as they called them. Now, let's make
a point concerning the Jew and the Gentile, which is, the Jews
had the law of God given unto them. They had the truth. They
had the oracles of God. They had the adoption. They had
the glory. They had the services of God.
They had the promises. Paul tells us that in Romans
9. And yet God never told the Jews
to share these things with the heathen, nor to evangelize them
or send out missionaries to win them away from their idols. He didn't do that, and that is
on purpose and deliberate. Even the Lord Jesus, before he
died upon the cross In Matthew 10 and verse 5, he sent out a
band of disciples to preach, but he put this restriction upon
them. Do not go into the way of the
Gentiles and into the city of the Samaritans. Enter not. Those restrictions. But in verse
6, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now question,
what about these millions and millions of Gentiles who lived
and worshipped in idolatry and died before the Lord Jesus died
to bring down that separating wall? Did they perish in their
darkness without Christ, without God, without a covenant? Did
they perish in that darkness? and in that ignorance, or was
there, as some like to think, another way for them to be saved
other than by faith in and through the Lord Jesus Christ? Again,
I raise the question, could they behold the creation and find
the truth and the way unto God? Paul tells us in Romans chapter
1, they worship the created more than the Creator, or instead
of the Creator. and that they are without excuse
for that? Or will God withhold His wrath
because they didn't know? Will He behold His wrath because
they never were told about their sin and about the wrath of God? Will God give them a pass? Will He let their sins go unpunished? No. He will bring every work
into judgment, all must appear, even they who have no saving
revelation of the things of God. Now there might be some hearing
this and flee to that text in Romans 2, 14, and 15 from the
apostle as proof that the Gentile who did by nature the things
contained in the law, that is, they did not have the law as
the Jews did, but we must not lose sight of the fact that Paul
in Romans 1 is establishing the deep depravity and the guilt
of the pagan world. And he says in verse 18, the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. That is, they suppress it. They
hold it down. Romans 1, They which do such
things are worthy of death," Paul said. Is it not the Christian
belief, and is it not the Christian belief based upon the Scripture
that salvation is only in and through Christ Jesus, that there
is none of the name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must
be saved. Acts chapter 4 and verse 12. That He is the way and the only
way unto the Father. That He is the way, He is the
truth, He is the life. John 14 and verse 6. And John 3 and verse 18. He that
believeth not on Christ, is condemned already because he believes not
in the name of God's only Son. How say some then that there
must be a special exemption for the heathen and for those who
have not heard? There is a view held by some.
We cannot say that it is widespread or popular in our day. that makes
a distinction between time and eternal salvation. That some are elect and they
never find it out. That some are elect but they're
never regenerate, they're never called, and they never are converted. Pray tell where is such a thing
to be found in the Scripture. There are even some who hold
that none will be lost forever. There is no such thing as a sinner
dying and going to hell. The reason is faulty because
It is not based upon the Scripture. Their argument for such a position
is purely an emotional argument that God is too kind and gentle
and loving to allow any of His creatures to perish in such a
lake of fire or condemnation. Others would give a pathway to
heavenly citizenship to those who profess that there is a God
or that there is a God. Because they do things, they
help others, they do some good things, they're family-oriented,
and on and on. Thomas Goodwin the Puritan warned
us, some have mistaken the natural light of conscience as if it
were a work of divine grace. Conscience is a very powerful
influence, and God is able to hold the reins under that. But
it is not grace. If conscience deters a man, or
prevents him from something. It is conscience, it is not the
grace of God. Jesus spoke of the vain repetition
of the heathen, Matthew 6 and verse 7, saying, they think that
they will be heard for their much speaking. Their prayers
are empty prayers, empty words, our Lord said. They are but babblings. Spurgeon called them a mere exercise
of the organs of noise-making," unquote. And again, he called
them parrot experiences, although the heathen recognized the existence
of some God or higher being, and although they did them service,
yet as Thomas Manton, another Puritan, wrote, quote, they were
blind and dark in their worship, unquote. In short, their worship
was and is nothing more than idolatry, which gives them neither
credit nor favor in the sight of God. A man worshiping a wooden
carved idol has no credit for God for that. Hear again the
words of the prophet Hosea, chapter 3 and verse 2, a mighty verse. You only have I known of all
of the nations of the earth, or families of the earth. In
verse 1 this is spoken to, O children of Israel, the whole family which
I brought up out of the land of Egypt. And then he calls in
Exodus 19, And verse 5, a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. Deuteronomy 7 and 6, God chose
you to be a special people unto Himself above all people on the
earth and unto them. Psalms 147 and verse 19 and verse
20, listen. He showed them his word unto
Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not so dealt
with any other nation." What did Paul tell the Lycanians in
Acts 14 and verse 16? Who in time past, God suffered
all nations to walk in their own way. The word suffered may
be like an archaic word now, but it means permit or allow,
who have in time past permitted all nations to walk in their
own way. The word walk here is a figurative
way of expressing a person's conduct or manner of living. For centuries, this was the case
with the nations. He suffered them to walk in their
own way, in their ignorance and blindness and without a direct
revelation, up till the death of Christ upon the cross, when
the covenant was then enlarged to the Gentiles and they were
called and converted. But over those century after
century after century, they were left unto themselves. Some might think of Paul's words
in Romans 3 and verse 29, that God is not the God of the Jews
only, He's also the God of the Gentiles. That is, He is God
of Gentiles to which we know. This is not in reference to their
former days of ignorance, but to the Gentiles justified by
faith in Christ Jesus. So that now the middle wall of
petition is broken down. Those in every nation that fear
God are accepted. Acts 10 verse 34 and 35. This Peter said to a house full
of Gentiles down at the house of Carnelius. Now, we must draw
to a close by saying that none can understand and receive the
fact that the heathens without Christ are lost. unless they
admit that God is sovereign in electing whomsoever He pleases. This election is the other half
of the decree of reprobation. There is a reprobation. God leaves people in their sin
and in their ignorance. And who can deny that the Almighty
God for centuries did leave the Gentiles without a revelation
of himself. What can we say except what Eli
said when Samuel the prophet came and told him that God would
kill his two sons Phineas and Hopni. What did old Eli, the
priest of God, say when he heard that his sons would be slain? He said in 1 Samuel 3 and verse
18, it is the Lord, let him do as seemeth good in his sight. Whom he will, he blinds. Whom
he will, he enlightens. It is the sovereign right of
God to do so. He has the sovereign prerogative
to do as he pleases, to do with mine own as I will. So, the conclusion. If a person
lives and dies in the ignorance of paganism, even if a missionary
never comes, even if nobody ever drops them a load of Bibles or
parachutes in to talk to them, if they live and die without
hearing of Christ, they are lost. They are not saved simply because
they're in a bad condition or pretty good or do good works
or believe in some kind of religion. This is the teaching of the scripture. They are lost. Now that's a hard saying, isn't
it? But we believe in election. We believe in reprobation. Those
two things make up the decree of God regarding the human family.