Q: Why does God keep giving some people more chances to turn to Him when He knows they won't? I guess what I'm trying to say is why does God keep giving evil people chances when He knows that they are going to continue to do evil?
A: Maybe we should all ask the question why did God give any of us a chance to turn to Him when we all turned away from Him in sin? We should be careful not to stand in judgement of others as if they will never come to faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps, someone said the same thing about us prior to our salvation. All of us deserve to go to Hell because we are dead to God in sin when we are born into this world. Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That includes you and me. Normally, when we pass judgement on others it is because they are doing the things that we are not doing. Therefore, in our pride we look down on them as if because of their behavior they are beyond saving. If God were to give us what we deserved we would all go to Hell. Jesus said that whoever does not believe in Him "stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son (John 3:18)." This should remind us of where we were prior to receiving Christ by faith. It should encourage us to exhaust all our resources in order to get the message of the Gospel out into the world.
Whether God knows who is going to Hell and who isn't is a question that is best left for God to answer. We, as finite beings, cannot enter into God's infinite foreknowledge. Besides, none of us know who is going to go to hell and who is not. If we did then we would only have to preach the Gospel to those we knew were going to accept it. However, that flies in the face of the clear teaching of scripture. "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)." God wants everybody to go to Heaven and spend eternity with Him. Hell was not created for mankind, but for Satan and his fallen angels. If you see someone engaged in evil acts, it is definitely a sign of a person who has not come to faith in Jesus Christ. However, all of us, whether Christians or unbelievers, still sin. So, because someone is engaging in sin is not the proof of where they will spend eternity. Granted we should see the diminishing of sin in the life of a believer, but we will never see it cease to exist altogether. For an unbeliever, their sin is proof that they're dead in Adam and need to come alive to Christ. That is where Christians are available to God so He can use us to get the Gospel to them.
As children of God, we can identify with what unbelievers are going through who are trapped in evil behavior. Why? Because we know what we were like before we were blessed to find salvation in Christ. That should humble us to want to reach them with the message of Jesus Christ, not lament over why God seemingly gives evil people endless opportunities to engage in sin. Think about the apostle Paul for example. He believed himself to be the least of the apostles because his former life as a Pharisee. "For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God (1 Corinthians 15:9)." Imagine what must have ran through the minds of Christians facing persecution by Paul when he was a Pharisee. Do you think some of them might have asked "why does God keep giving evil people chances when He knows they are going to continue to do evil?" The answer might be seen in what the Lord was able to do through Paul after his conversion. Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament. We may never know the exact number of Christians who came to faith in Christ through direct contact with him or through reading his words in the pages of scripture. Here we are nearly two thousand years after Paul's death and his life and testimony are still teaching and encouraging believers. Thank God that He didn't give up on Paul.
The most famous passage in the Bible, and quite possibly all of literature, is John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Salvation is available to the world, not just a select few. Granted, hell will be occupied by individuals who partook in evil of all kinds. But, they are not there because of their evil deeds or because they ran out of opportunities to know God, but because they chose to deny the salvation offered to them in Christ Jesus. In fact, God loves the world so much that He has given us the testimony about Himself through His Creation (Romans 1:20), through our own conscience (Romans 2:15) and, ultimately, through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:22). We must understand that God does not send anybody to Hell. The Bible is clear that "whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him (John 3:36)." In other words, God keeps giving people chances because He loves them and wants them to turn to Christ by faith. Many people have been snatched from Hell because their evil deeds revealed their sin and need for salvation. While at the same time many people have come to faith in Christ because the evil deeds they have endured showed them their need for a Savior. Every evil act that happens in this world can be used by God to draw people to Him. And He graciously gives us every opportunity to allow those evil deeds to produce salvation in those effected by them.
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