1. If everyone is going to get to Heaven eventually, what's the point of being a Christian?
As one chosen by God to have the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven revealed to you (Matthew 13:11), "It is God who has delivered us out of the dominion of darkness, and has transferred us into the Kingdom of His dearly-loved Son, (Colossians 1:13). We have communion with the Creator of the universe (1 John 3:6) by His own will, as it is written, "In accordance with His will He made us His children through the Message of the truth, so that we might, in a sense, be the First fruits of the things which He has created."(James 1:18) It is to us the promises were given (Eph 2:12-13), and we can call upon the name of God and know Him like a Father and a Brother (Jer 31:31-34).
We are God's family. It is also through us that God works His plan of Salvation, for we are His body (1 Cor 12:27) and His ambassadors to the world (2 Cor 5:18-20). God is the Creator and we are His tools, and He uses us to accomplish His plan. That is why He asks us to pray for the world (1 Tim 2:1-6), and why Jesus prayed for the world (John 17:23), to save it (John 4:42, 1 John 4:14).
We are God's army (Joel 2:11). God will highly exalt us as His Son's Bride before all Creation (Rev 21:2). He is the Head of the Body, but we ARE the Body. We have eternal Life, and live from this age into the next. We have been freed from the bondage and slavery of sin (Gal 4:3), in which the world is imprisoned. We are freed to live for God. We have the benefits of God, which are to have all our iniquities forgiven and our diseases healed (Psa 103:2-3), to name just a few. This is the POINT of being Christian.
If all this is still not as attractive as going into the world and being in bondage to sin, sickness and death and open to attack from all the evil spirits, not knowing God or His Son, and dying in your sins, then you are blinded by the devil and deceived. Would you try to tell me that you would give up your relationship with God to live the way the world does just because you would still be saved in the end?? 1 Corinthians 3:15 says, "If any one's work is burnt up, he will suffer the loss of it; yet he will himself be rescued, but only, as it were, by passing through the fire." That would be your end. You would not receive the reward of the overcomers promised in Revelations. You would be outside the wedding supper and weeping and gnashing your teeth.
If you would give up what you have as a Christian to go the way of the world, regardless of whether everyone is going to be saved or not, I would have to question not only your Christianity but your sanity as well.
2. What about free will? We have to choose Jesus or we go to hell.
The Doctrine of Free Will is un-biblical. It was invented to provide a Theological loophole to the hard question of, "Why did Jesus, who is called the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14), fail to save the world?".
Instead of taking the Calvinist line of "God doesn't really Love the world, just the Christians", they elevate ignorance of God's Word to the status of the unforgivable sin. They say if you don't choose, of your own free will, to follow Jesus you will go to hell forever. This is not taught in the bible, but rather the opposite is emphasized.
Jesus said no one could come to Him unless God the Father draws him. (John 6:44) Also Jesus stressed that He was the one that did the choosing, not the ones chosen (John 15:16). What they are missing is a rather small leap, but a very, very important one. It was the Holy Spirit that moved over the face of the great deep. He then said, "Let there be Light!" (Gen 1:2-3). In this same, exact way, the Spirit of God moves over someone, and says, "Let there be Light!" (2 Cor 4:6). Why would you think that you have any more choice in the matter than the universe? When God says "Light Be!" Light is! And before Light is, you are separated from God, blinded, unspiritual, do not know about the things of God and have no true knowledge of Him.
It is ONLY AFTER the entrance of His Light that you can know Him. Why in the world would you make Jesus your Lord if you do not know Him? If all you knew was that He was some guy, that lived 2000 years ago in Israel, said a bunch of good things, and some people think He was the Savior of the world, why would you make Him your Lord? Easy, you wouldn't. You need the revelation, whether you recognize it as such or not, that Jesus is the Son of the Living God (Matt 16:13-19), and as we clearly see this COMES FROM GOD, NOT YOU.
Peter didn't do anything consciously to come to that conclusion, Jesus said GOD GAVE it to Him. That is the Rock, the Key, revealed knowledge from God. Without it, you are not solid, and have no access to the mysteries of God.
Now, granted there are alot of people that go to church every Sunday that believe themselves to be Christian, but have never met Jesus or received that revelation from God. There are also alot that are deceived into believing that it was their own choice, independent of God, to choose Jesus. That doesn't mean they haven't made Jesus the Lord of their lives, and are born of the Spirit, it is just that they are taking credit for a blessing from God. They say that they themselves repented and turned from sin, and asked God to save them, when the Bible says this in itself is a blessing directly from God.(Psa 1:1, 32:3, 40:4)
Yes, you receive blessings from God when you walk with Him, such as health and wisdom and spiritual understandings, etc., but they neglect to recognized Who gave them their Life in the first place. To say you had any part at all in your own salvation is to call Jesus a liar and claim that what He did was not powerful enough complete the job Himself. It was His sacrifice that saved you and raised you to life. You were dead, and separated from God.
They have forgotten what they were admonished to remember. Ephesians 2:11-13 states this very clearly,
"Therefore, do not forget that formerly you were Gentiles as to your bodily condition. You were called the Uncircumcision by those who style themselves the Circumcised--their circumcision being one which the knife has effected. At that time you were living apart from Christ, estranged from the Commonwealth of Israel, with no share by birth in the Covenants which are based on the Promises, and you had no hope and no God, in all the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were so far away have been brought near through the death of Christ."
It is through His death that you are brought near, not anything you did. Jesus worked the entire salvation of the race of Mankind by HIMSELF (Isa 63:1-5, Rom 5:12-21, Heb 10:12). You do have free will, but it does not change your destiny. Your free will lies in the choices you make with what God has given you for your journey, not where you are going. God didn't ask Jonah to go to Nineveh, He TOLD him he was going to go to Nineveh. Big difference. We see Jonah exercise his free will, disobey God and try to run to Tarshish. But we all know he ended up in Nineveh. He could have just done what God said, and it would have gone well with him. Instead, he disobeyed and spent 3 days in the belly of a whale.
This is also explained in Isa 1:18-20. The Bible is full of examples of God usurping man's so-called 'free will'. Was it Paul's free will to be blinded on the road to Damascus? And we have this example repeated 4 separate times in the book of Acts alone. Do you think maybe God was trying to tell us something by this example? Something about how He deals with sinners, blasphemers, the ignorant and the unbelieving? Paul chose AFTER he was chosen, not before. He went from being a vessel of wrath, to a vessel of mercy, as it is written, "Romans 11:32 for God did shut up together the whole to unbelief, that to the whole He might do kindness."
I have free will to do anything I want, but I chose, by the power of God on my life, to obey Him. We are free from the Law, not because we ignore it, but because we are enabled by God to walk in it and Love God and our neighbors. God frees us from sin by giving us power over it, but none of these are us doing anything by our own power. We have none.
The people that are still in the world, in bondage to sin and the fear of death, CANNOT come to God unless God enables them too. God must draw you to His Son. Anything else is boasting. And what God did for you, He will eventually do for all. You were a sinner once too, you were dead in your sins too, your were once in bondage to the devil too, and God saved you! Why would you think He won't save them as well?
Our responsibility lies in acting on what God has given us, and freely giving it to others. We who are Christians have been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 13:11), and those who are not Christians have NOT been given it. (Matt 13:11) Until they get it, they CANNOT (not will not) know Him. It is always given by revelation from God, whether through bible tracts, preaching, teaching, writing, whatever. When the Word enters into someone, that is God in action, not them.
The mystery that ties all this together is that there will be two groups of people in Heaven, those that overcome and those that don't. Christians will rule and reign with Christ, but we rule over those that are unbelievers in this life, in a divine heavenly government, headed by Jesus Himself (Isa 9).
What Mankind has always struggled for, what all wars are fought to accomplish, what Man has always wanted; a good, safe, happy, comfortable place to live, free from tyranny, disaster, poverty and war is what God has in mind for the entire Creation. That is the end of the matter, that is their destiny. We are heavens government, who will rule and reign justly and fairly and in righteousness.
How long has Mankind longed for a perfect leader? Well, they will finally get one; Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the descendant of King David. We are the few that are revealed the narrow way to walk, but most don't find it in this life. They do not come to life until the end of the ages. They do not get life until this age is over, and they are raised from death. Yes, they will be judged, but so were you once. That judgment killed you (Rom 7:9- 11) and God had you reborn in the Spirit, by the power of the resurrection of Jesus. They too will have this happen to them when they are cast into the Lake that burns with the Divine Fire of God. They too will be Baptized in Fire, and it will have the same effect on them as it had on you.
You were chosen by God before the foundation of the world to be used by God to reveal Himself to His Creation. This does NOT mean you are better, just chosen by God. Stand in awe of it, but DO NOT take credit for it. I hope this give you some things to think about.