They Don't Know

Every year there are a few "preachers" who walk around the campus of UNCW and start speaking, or yelling, about Jesus. They typically gather a number of students who stop by to listen for a while. No one really knows where they come from, and most of us wish they would stop coming, but what makes them known all around campus is not so much that they do this, but for something else; that they tell everybody that they are going to hell.

All you have to do is walk by, and you may receive your condemnation. My problem though, is not so much that they may be turning some people off to the Christian message, or that they are causing students who don't know Jesus to laugh at Christians "who believe that stuff" that these "preachers" are unlovingly preaching. My problem is that they are wrong. I've been yelled at that I am going to hell, but I won't be. They have no idea who is going to heaven and hell, nor is it their place to make any such judgment. They not only have no scriptural authority to make such claims (only Jesus does), but they also have no knowledge as to where anyone's eternal destination lies (again, only Jesus does).

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
-Romans 10:9-10

While it is our responsibility as Christians to tell people about Jesus and salvation, we cannot force salvation upon anyone, nor do we have the power to make anyone believe or the ability to know if someone is saved or not. That is between the individual and God. It isn't our job to make people believe, it's only our job to tell them. God, though the Holy Spirit, saves people, not us. As the apostle Paul puts it:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.
-Romans 1:16