Saved ONLY by faith in Jesus?

1. Are you a Christian?

2. Do you believe, strictly and rigidly, that ONLY those who claim Jesus as their Lord and Saviour can possibly be saved?

3. What about all those people who lived out their life before Jesus ever came to Earth? This applies to many millions of people. For instance, if someone was born in 774 BC and died in 703 BC, they could not ever have known about Jesus, because He had not yet lived His earthly life. What will happen to those people?

4. What about all those people who were born after Jesus, but never heard about Him? This is less common today, because of TV, radio, and missionaries etc, but it must have been common a few hundred years ago. If someone was born in, let's say, Madagascar, in the year 731 AD, and died in 794 AD, he or she may never have heard about Jesus, so could not have claimed Him as their Lord. What will happen to those people?

5. What about all those people who are brought up from birth in another religion, such as Islam? In some parts of Africa, such as Mali, children are taught the Koran from age 5, and made to memorise parts of it. The teaching in some parts of the world is so strict and authoritarian, that people adopt the mindset of the religion they're taught. So it's not really their fault if they don't claim Jesus as their Saviour. What about all those people?

6. What about all those people who are mentally incompetent? Just a few people have such a low IQ that they cannot understand a concept of Jesus as their Saviour, and so cannot claim Him. If someone has an IQ below 25, they are classed as an "idiot" which is to say, they can do virtually nothing for themselves at all. What will happen to them on the Day of Judgement?

7. So, if you answered "strictly and rigidly" in question 2, did the next four questions make you reconsider just a little bit?

8. Thank you for voting, and God bless you.