Friday, November 29, 2019

"This is an evil generation: they seek a sign" - How can we request God to fulfill our wish?




Mt. Fuji from around Tokyo


How Can We Request God to Fulfill our Wish?

The Gospel by John reads as follows: Joh 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

And Christ Jesus never presented the God to His followers or showed the God to people.  However, Christ Jesus told: "Mark 12:24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?"

And the Old Testament reads as follows: "Exo 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."

However, the Bible itself is based on belief in the God.  Christ Jesus was sent by the God to this world.  Nonetheless, men cannot see the God.  So it is not rational to deny existence of the God only for the reason that we cannot see the God.

One of the most important words about the God in the Bible is as follows: "Luk 18:27 And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God."

This is the basic reason why people pray to the God, expressing their wishes.  The God can perform miracles.  So, people often pray to the God, asking Him to make their wishes come true.  Indeed, if we admit that the God exists but think that He is indifferent about us or He never cares about us, who would pray to, revere, or love the God?

But the history shows a difficult fact.  Millions of Jewish people were killed in WWII.  They all must have prayed to the God, asking help and salvation.  But miracles did not happen.  The God did not interfere with the tragedy of Jewish people in WWII.  However, Judaism was not abolished by Jewish people after WWII.  Jewish people who survived WWII must have asked the God why He had not immediately saved them in the Holocaust.  And, it has not been publicly announced what answer they got from the God, but Jewish people has not yet abandoned their faith in the God.

It means that Jewish people must at least feel that the God is right and they have to accept the fact of the Holocaust.  For example, when the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century, Jewish people did not start to come back to Jerusalem.  For almost 1500 years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, no movement occurred for Jewish people to return to Jerusalem, which must have displeased the God who gave the area around Jerusalem to ancestors of Jewish people.  It must have been taken as a great blasphemy.

It may be hard to think that way, but with this assumption, we may calculate that deaths of 6 million Jewish people were corresponding to this 1500-year blasphemy in the ratio of 4000 deaths per year.  In other word, the God wanted 4000 Jewish people per year to return to Jerusalem after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.  Indeed, the God in the Old Testament is stern and severe.  Besides, the God is the lord of the mankind represented by Jewish people.  But if Jewish people had neglected the wish of the God that Jewish people should come back and live around Jerusalem as soon as possible after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, it is no wonder that the God assigned a special fate to Jewish people.

Like in the case of the Holocaust, we might not expect that the God listens to us and makes our wish come true while we are not 100% obedient to the God.

However, Christ Jesus said: Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
Luk 17:7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
Luk 17:8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
Luk 17:9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.  

So, if we do not observe the word of God and follow the teaching of the God 100% or so, we cannot expect the God listens to our prayers and accepts our wish to perform a miracle for making our wish come true.  The God can assign any fate to any individual because He is the lord of the mankind.  And, the God can repay or remunerate any individual, if necessary, after his/her death by accepting him or her in Heaven. 

However, it seems that only the God can measure the degree of our faith in God.  If we have just 10% or 20% of required faith, how can we request or demand God to fulfill our wish? 

Finally, we have to believe in existence of the God, learn and perform honestly the word of the God, and then we may ask the God to make our wish come true.


   

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Luk 11:28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Luk 11:29 And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet.
Luk 11:30 For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.