How can a loving God allow the suffering we see around us every day? According to common Christian teaching, the ultimate end of all this suffering is for people to die and arrive in either a place called heaven or a place of eternal torment called hell. It is thought that most end up in hell. How could God condemn the majority of mankind who aren't Christians to everlasting punishment in hell?

Many have agonized over a relative or friend who died an agnostic. Is that person forever damned to indescribable torment? What about children who die from malnutrition, war and disease in remote areas of the world where they've never even heard of Jesus Christ? Are they forever trapped in Satanic inflicted torture?

One of the most quoted verses in the Bible is John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." But isn't God being unfair to untold billions of people who never heard of Jesus Christ? Yet, the Bible claims that "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

In the Middle Ages Christian zeal to save lost souls launched the Crusades and the use of torture and killing in order to force Muslims and Jews to accept Jesus. Over the centuries, missionaries suffered and died to bring the message of Christ to primitive tribes. But the harsh reality is that in spite of all efforts, the majority of mankind is non-Christian.

The question remains: What about the billions of people who throughout history have never heard of Jesus Christ? Couldn't Jesus miraculously appear to people in China, Japan and Africa and convert hundreds of millions? If God and Satan are in a war over the souls of men it seems God is losing.

The Biblical Reward of the Saved

This begs another question: What is the reward of the true followers of Jesus Christ? The most common teaching is that the saved go to heaven upon death. But this isn't what Jesus taught. He proclaimed, as recorded in John 6:40: "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

Wait a minute! Jesus Christ says that the reward of His followers is a resurrection from the dead "at the last day," not going to heaven immediately after death.

The apostle John was inspired to write about this resurrection in Revelation 20:1-6: "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.

"And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

"Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."

Notice that the Bible reveals a resurrection of the saints at the return of Christ to the earth. The apostle John clearly calls this the first resurrection. The rest of the dead are not resurrected until the end of Christ's one thousand year reign on earth.

Paul warns Christians to take their great calling seriously so as not to jeopardize the grace God offers. He writes in 2 Corinthians 5:9-11: "Therefore, we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good and bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men..."

If the resurrection of the saints is called the first resurrection, what is the second resurrection?

The Hope for Mankind

John reveals in Revelation that the Father will send Jesus Christ back to this earth to establish His Kingdom and reign for a thousand years. After the thousand years there will be a second resurrection called the Great White Throne Judgment.

Let's return to Revelation 20:11. "Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books."

The Bible clearly reveals a second resurrection in addition to the resurrection of the saints at Christ's second coming. Unlike the first resurrection, those in the second resurrection are restored to physical life.

The prophet Ezekiel was given a vision of a valley filled with dry bones in Ezekiel 37. God tells Ezekiel that these bones will come together, be covered with flesh and come back to life. The purpose is so that these people may know the real God (verse 13). God says to those whom He resurrects, "I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live..." (verse 14).

Revelation 20:12 states the "books were opened" followed by the opening of the "Book of Life." The first "books" are the Scriptures, God's Holy Bible, the instruction book for mankind. God will reveal Himself to all peoples who never knew Him.

Here is an incredible truth that most Christians don't understand! Paul teaches that where there is no knowledge of sin, there is no "imputing" or putting to one's account (Romans 5:12-15). Although each person suffers the immediate consequences of sin, including physical death, God is not yet passing eternal judgment on the majority of mankind! All who ever lived without a chance of salvation will be resurrected and given an opportunity to choose the real God. This is the second resurrection.

Jesus warned religious leaders of His day that they would be resurrected along with those God destroyed in Sodom (Matthew 11:20-24). He told the Pharisees that the people of Ninevah from Jonah's time and the queen of the South from the time of Solomon "will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it" (Matthew 12:38-42). These people will be resurrected together at the second resurrection.

This doesn't mean that everyone gets a "second chance." Those called by God in this age, who have received the Holy Spirit, are now under judgment. The second resurrection is for all those who never had a chance for salvation in this world dominated by Satan.

God's Judgment

What, then, is to be the final judgment for the incorrigibly wicked? Let's go back and pick up Revelation 20:13-15: "The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire."

This "second death" is complete annihilation of life. This is what Jesus spoke of in Matthew 10:28-31, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

The fact that God punishes the wicked means that there must be personal responsibility in responding to God's grace. A gospel message without a call to repentance and declaration of Christ's coming judgment becomes a message based on an unbiblical assumption that accepting the name of Jesus is all God requires.

The encouraging news is that God doesn't call anyone to fail. True Christianity is a relationship with God as His sons and daughters. Judgment is now upon the house of God, but members of His family have direct access to the Father, the leadership of Jesus Christ, and the power of the indwelling Spirit to insure victory. The only way true followers can lose salvation is to willingly return to the previous unconverted state (Hebrews 12:12-24).

Christians need to be mindful of the grace God offers through His Son. We celebrate the fact that our sins are forgiven and the Holy Spirit is made available so that God's righteousness is developed in us. Christians can take a positive view of the judgment by looking forward to the first resurrection.

Proclaiming the Gospel

Some may ask, "If the majority of mankind is going to receive an opportunity for salvation in the future, then why should the Church work at preaching the gospel to the world now?" The real question should be, if we understand this great message of hope, how can we not preach it with every fiber of our being? Anyone who truly understands the gospel desires to share it with others.

It's easy for Christians to become so involved in daily troubles that we miss the grandeur of God's great plan of salvation that reaches across time to all humanity. Remember Peter's admonishment to the early Church, "But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:7-9).

Kevin Carter, the photojournalist mentioned earlier, took many snapshots of humanities' evil. He was disturbed by what he said were "vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain...of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen" (Capture the Moment—The Pulitzer Prize Photographs, 2001, edited by Cyma Rubin and Eric Newton). Kevin Carter was overwhelmed by the suffering he witnessed. He committed suicide at age 33.

There is hope for this sick and dying world. The majority of humanity who never had an opportunity to know the true Creator will have a chance to choose salvation through Christ in the Great White Throne Judgment. This seldom known truth is the great hope for billions of the living and the dead.