What you couldn't offer any kind of prayer for the Japanese people?
Are you so legalistic, playing the Pharisees game of "I'm so Righteous" and I really know the scriptures?
What did Jesus call the Pharisees?
MT 23:27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
You could have prayed for the salvation of the Japanese people? That is not praying against God's prophecy.
This was a thread started for the specific purpose of prayer. Instead you have decided to play the legalist.
Your great explaination was not necessary nor required.
The people of Japan need prayers and for people to reach them with the Gospel.
Fair enough there is a place to debate theological topics. This certainly was not the place nor the time. Instead of turning everything into a debate there are times as Christians where it is more appropriate to be sensitive and compassionate and self-controlled.
If this was a prayer group your comments would have been totally out of place. This is a prayer request thread and it would have been better not to have made your opinion here but maybe to have started a separate thread (in the correct sub-forum) to have made your point.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray for God's will to be done on the earth, as in heaven.(Matt 6:9, 10) This "will" involves making known "the good news of the kingdom", which educates individuals that earthquakes are part of the features of Jesus invisible "presence". Prayer in this regard is appropriate, that these ones come to know and understand that God is not the cause of earthquakes, but that "great earthquakes" (Luke 21:10,11) are evidence of Jesus enthronement into kingdom power (Rev 6:2-4) and a critical time period that we are personally living in Jesus (invisible) "presence", or the "last days".(2 Pet 3: 3, 4)
Have the churches given even an inkling of the
real meaning of all the events that are happening, such as the 9.0 earthquake in northeastern Japan ? I can say for a certainty no. Jesus used a specific Greek word
sy·ni´e·mi (lemma, G4920) that literally means "to mentally put the pieces together" regarding the kingdom six times at Matthew 13.(Matt 13:13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 51) The churches have
failed to ' piece together ' the features that Jesus gave at Matthew 24 about his invisible "presence" and the kingdom that involves earthquakes.(Matt 24:4-14)
Though some feel that we are living in the "last days", these have not been taught by the churches nor studied of their own accord in order to explain it. These cannot tie all the different features that Jesus gave into a single heading of Jesus "promised presence" that the apostle Peter spoke of.at 2 Peter 3:3, 4, saying: "For you know this first, that in the
last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires and saying: “Where is this
promised presence of his ? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep [in death], all things are
continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.”
Jesus said that the features that he outlined at Matthew 24 (also Mark 13 and Luke 21), would lead up to "the end" of this wicked "system of things."(Matt 24:14) Are you personally engaged in telling individuals about Jesus invisible "presence", that he has been enthroned in kingdom power ?(Rev 6:2) Have you "put the pieces together" to understand
why things are happening ?
It is right to pray for the well-being of the Japanese, but especially to gain "accurate knowledge", for the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians: "And this is what I continue
praying, that
your love may abound yet more and more with accurate knowledge and full discernment; that you may make sure of the more important things, so that you may be flawless and not be stumbling others up to the day of Christ, and may be filled with righteous fruit, which is through Jesus Christ, to God’s glory and praise."(Phil 1:9-11)
Paul prayed for the Philippians who were doing God's will, that their "love may abound yet more and more with accurate knowledge and full discernment." Paul had went to Macedonia for the purpose of making known the "good news of the kingdom" and as a result, some of the city of Philippi had accepted the "truth", such as Lydia.(Acts 16:14, 15)
The country of Japan is in dire straits after the earthquake and devastating tsunami. What would Jesus do if he were on the earth again ? He showed genuine love, but was not known as a "miracle worker", rather as "teacher".(Matt 8:19, 9:11) At Luke 13, there were two incidents where loss of life occurred, one in which Pontius Pilate killed some Jews because thousands of Jews protested his use of money from the temple treasury to build an aqueduct to bring water into Jerusalem.(Luke 13:1) Or of another local tragedy, that may have been associated with the aqueduct construction, whereby 18 people died when the tower of Siloam fell on them.
How did Jesus respond to these two tragedies ? He said: "Do you imagine that these Gal·i·le´ans were proved worse sinners than all other Gal·i·le´ans because they have suffered these things? No, indeed, I tell you; but, unless you repent, you will all likewise be destroyed. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Si·lo´am fell, thereby killing them, do you imagine that they were proved greater debtors than all other men inhabiting Jerusalem? No, indeed, I tell you; but, unless you repent, you will all be destroyed in the same way.”(Luke 13:2-5)
Jesus taught people the "truth" about God's kingdom, saying that even some of the individuals were considered "greater debtors" upon which the tower of Siloam fell or perhaps good in God's eyes, were still not pleasing to God, but needed "to repent." It is proper to pray that the Japanese (and I might add that my wife is Japanese) gain "accurate knowledge and full discernment", for the apostle Paul wrote that God's "will is that all sorts of men should be saved and come to an accurate knowledge of truth."(1 Tim 2:4) This is all that will be said by me on this.