Title: What would you ask for? Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Feb 10, 2015 Author:Bob Celeste Post Date:2015-02-10 17:35:42 by BobCeleste Keywords:ACP Views:8574 Comments:32
Let’s say God Almighty Himself knocked on your front door, came in, sat down and said to you; “What ever one thing you ask I will do for you.”
Let’s say God Almighty Himself knocked on your front door, came in, sat down and said to you; “What ever one thing you ask I will do for you.”
What would you ask for?
First, I would demand that he proved it was him.
Any powerful being can walk through the door and claim to be God Almighty. Because I know what I'm going to ask him, and I'm going to be impressed by the answer. But before I start dealing with spirits, I have to make sure that I'm dealing with the real deal.
"Thou shall not put the Lord, thy God, to the test.": True enough. But first, I have to establish that this person claiming to be "The Lord, my God" really IS the Lord, my God.
What test would convince me?
Well, there are a few things that I believe that only God can do - and specifically that Satan CANNOT do ("Can Satan cast out Satan?"), and there are certain things that I do not believe that Satan WOULD do, namely: say that Jesus Christ was God's Son.
So, I would ask God to prove that he was God, by letting me see Jesus as Jesus, acknowledging that Jesus was his son, and then I would ask God to transport me to a school for blind children, and I would ask him to heal all of the blind children there in an instant; and I would ask him to transport me to a children's hospital to see him heal a paralytic and raise a child from the dead.
Can Satan cast out Satan? Jesus asked that question. The answer Jesus was suggesting was "No", but I'm not entirely sure of that. Evil rulers frequently will sacrifice their own friends and allies if it will accomplish their goals, so I could very well see Satan driving out lesser demons, at least for a time, in order to establish miracles, signs and wonders that would impress people into believing he was God, and lead them astray.
Therefore, I am not putting GOD to the test, I am putting a spirit that has come to my door and CLAIMED to be God to the test, to make sure he's not Satan in disguise. And I'm doing it by forcing Satan into a whole series of things that would be very hateful to him: to acknowledge Jesus as God's son - but Satan might very well do that - after all, demons routinely recognized God's son. Whether this being were Satan or God, I would expect the answer that Jesus is God's son. If I got a different answer - that Jesus was not his begotten son, that the Christians are mistaken, that would be alarming, but I would nevertheless continue to test. I would ask about the Shroud of Turin, and if were explained to me that it was the work of demons, to try to prove that Jesus was God's Son, I would listen. Or if "God" showed instead that it was a fraud and let me see how it was, I would suspend judgment.
I would then look to the healings. God in his infinite mercy certainly can heal 100 blind children in an instant. If Satan has healing powers, or if blindness is demonic possession and Satan can drive the demons away, then he might. But the nature of what I have demanded as a test would require Satan to undo a LOT of evil just in order to persuade me...and I'm not so sure that Satan really DOES have the power to heal the blind. That seems to be something identified with God.
Likewise with the paralytic. Can Satan do that? Jesus did it. Can Satan? I don't know, but I know he wouldn't WANT to. Whereas for God, to release that burden would be trivial - a good thing.
And then finally raising the dead. If Satan could raise the dead, I expect that he would have raised some very foul people to do more evil. The best he seems to be able to do is to push demon spirits around. God can raise the dead, and I would have him raise a dead child back to life and return it to its parents. This would not be my asking something OF God - these would be the tests to which I would put this spirit to determine that he really was God.
Now, if the healings and the raising were done, and I faced a spirit who explained that Christ was NOT the Son of God, I would face a terrible dilemma. One of the reasons that my test includes such a litany of healings and positives, is that if "God" gave me the truth, and the truth were Islam, but "God" were really Satan and he was deceiving me, then he would have had to buy my soul very dearly, by releasing hundreds of children from blindness or death. But if it were God and the Christians have it wrong, I would accept that, unhappily.
I expect that, instead, God would indeed aver Christ as his son, and the very miracles that Christ performed would be done again as proof of it. So, you are God, and I know I am not being deceived.
This, then, is what I would ask of God: God, please give me the power to heal in your name all living things: plants, animals and men, of their physical infirmities. Please tell me the specific name, in whatever language, by which I am to do it, and then please empower me to heal and send me out to do it for the remainder of my time on earth. That is the one thing I ask of you.
And then, once he gave that to me, I would drop all other things and go out and do that, everywhere, constantly, and proclaim the glory of God and heal everything in his name, for as long as I remained alive on earth.
That is what I would ask him: the power to heal all living things.
But then God would reply to me: My child, I do not need to go to the hospital with you. I grant you what you asked, and you go and heal the blind children for me.
