QUESTION:

I was listening to a radio show last week and they were saying that Wal-Mart wants or is going to put tags on their merchandise that will tell them who is buying it and other personal information that no tag has had so far.  They will be the first to use it.  They were urging people to call Wal-Mart and tell them that they do not want it.

The church I grew up going to (in the late 60’s) had a series on” The End Times”.  It warned of progress like this and said that people will have to have chips implanted in them with their personal information to do almost every thing in their everyday lives.  Christians were told not to get this chip implanted.  It also spoke of a one-world order.  Now the Frito-Lay Company who also owns PepsiCo and a few others, has in their workrooms a poster stating  “One World Order”.  I believe technology is moving so fast that we are living in the end of times.  I think I will be in my 80’s when it does happen, but I think we are going head long in that direction.  What do you think?  I am also worried about what happens to young people who are in that time period but have not turned their life to Christ?  I have met many people who have become Christians later in their lives.  What happens to those who won’t have a chance to turn their lives around since some people take years to believe in Jesus as their personal savor?

Here’s a personal story that made me think of that question.

I knew a man who came from a very large family.  He was not supervised well while growing up.  He started to use drugs at a young age and also would steal cars and break into people’s homes.  This lasted for all his teen years and into his late thirties.  Sometime in his forties he became a Christian and later a minister.  If he would have died during his bad times, when I know he would have told God he wasn’t interested in anything that had to do with the Bible, would he still have gone to Heaven because God knew down the road he was going to turn his life around?  Will that be the same thing when Jesus returns and some people have yet to give their life to Christ?

ANSWER:

The Big Brother invasion from technology and one world government movements do concern me. We may indeed be the last generation before the return of Jesus, but according to scripture, we can never know that for certain until an event known as the Abomination Of Desolation, when the Jewish temple is rebuilt and the Anti-Christ sits upon a throne in the Holy of Holies, claiming to be God. Until that happens, Jesus said, “No one knows the day or the hour” (Matt 24).

As for this man who became a Christian late in life, what strikes me immediately is that God did keep him alive long enough to get saved. Whether people die at a young age or an old age, whether Jesus returns early or late in a person’s life, God will allow sufficient time to repent.

In cases of people who somehow died without hearing the message, the Bible is not clear how God will judge them, but there seem to be some clues.  I do believe God will take sincere ignorance into consideration (Acts 17) and look into a person’s conscience, evaluating them according to what He knows they would have done if they had heard.

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