Question: Ever heard someone object to the biblical doctrines of man’s depravity and God’s election by posing a question along these lines: “But what about the innocent man on a remote island who has never heard the gospel? That would be ‘unfair’ for God not to save him.”

Sure, we all have heard questions like that. It can be helpful to ask the person asking the question to show you an ‘innocent’ person. Who is innocent among us? Will we listen to what Scripture actually teaches?

They are all corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good (Psalm 14:1b, ESV).

How about the next two verses of Psalm 14:

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one (Psalm 14:2-3, ESV).

How about Isaiah? Maybe he has a different message than David:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment (Isaiah 64:6a, ESV).

How about Moses? Maybe he has a different message than David and Isaiah:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5, ESV).

How about Paul? Maybe he has a different message than David, Isaiah, and Moses:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV).

How about Christ Himself? Surely, He will have a different message than David, Isaiah, Moses, and Paul:

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil (John 3:19, ESV).

Connection to Amos as a Forerunner of the Good News: Amos 3:7 entails a profound truth: God does not hide Himself or His message of redemption through judgment; He sends prophets to speak for His truth:

For the LORD GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7, ESV).

In plain terms, God is a communicating God. To use Schaeffer’s phrase, God is not silent.

There is no innocent person on a deserted island. Why? Because there are no innocent people. We are all sinners by nature. That’s the point of the verses above, and countless others in the 66 books of Scripture.

But all of the Bible coheres. It tells one unified story of what God has done in Christ for all who will hear, repent, and believe:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:4-5, ESV).

Encouragement: Christ has done what we neither would do nor could do. And He bids us sinners welcome, or to use poetic biblical language, to taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8, ESV).