It has never been God's way to give miricales to help people believe. If there are people who do not know about Jesus, it is our job to tell them. That was the commission Christ gave.

How can people believe God is the only true God if there is no tangible evidence that God exists? How can they be guilty of wilfully rejecting the truth about God if there is no physical proof that God even exists? Where is the proof that God exists, and that He is the only one and true God? Where is the proof that all other higher powers or gods are false gods? What about all the people who are doing just fine without having faith in Jesus? Where is the proof that having faith in Jesus is the only thing that leads to true peace and happiness? Why would anybody be attracted to a dysfunctional religion if they are already experiencing peace and happiness without having faith in Jesus?

Hi, Mike,

I am too new on this forum to know, but are you asking these questions to promote discussion or do you really, personally, have these questions/doubts?

I do feel that each person is born with an innate need to worship. As some say, there is a God-sized hole in each person that needs to be filled.
Some fill it with the true God, others with God-substitutes like heroin, alcohol, idols, false gods, meditation, suicide...

To the seeking soul, God will be made evident. To the believer, there are proofs everywhere. The Holy Spirit is striving with every single person on this planet.

Many questions won't be answered for reasons only God knows. Many things are left a mystery and we don't know the "whys" of everything. We may have to save these questions for Jesus when we sit at His feet in heaven.

May we all seek Him with all our hearts.

Vicki

Well, here is how Jesus felt about giving a sing or miracle to help belief:

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He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.”
Mark 8:12 NIV

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He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Matthew 12:39 NIV

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A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.
Matthew 16:4 NIV

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It seems that Jesus felt that requiring a sing for belief was "wicked."

Vicki, I am a believer. I am asking these questions to get help from fellow believers so I can help non-believers choose to become believers.

Dave, yes, God doesn't think doing miracles is the best way to make believers out of non-believers. But Jesus did say, "Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake." John 14:11. But I'm not suggesting that God do miracles. I'm simply asking why doesn't He appear in the sky or something and declare His existence and will for mankind, in a way doesn't consume us in our sins prematurely?

For one reason or another Jesus feels revealing Himself in the sky, or whatever, isn't the best way to help us proclaim the gospel. It doesn't make perfect sense to me now, but I accept it. Here is what I found so far. We, born again believers, are the evidence that God exists. The way we live our lives tells for or against the truth about God's existence and His will for the human race.

Isaiah
43:8 Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.
43:9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, [It is] truth.
43:10 Ye [are] my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
43:11 I, [even] I, [am] the LORD; and beside me [there is] no saviour.
43:12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have showed, when [there was] no strange [god] among you: therefore ye [are] my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I [am] God.

John
17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
17:20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, [art] in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

ED 57
The greatest want of the world is the want of men-- men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. {Ed 57.3}

But such a character is not the result of accident; it is not due to special favors or endowments of Providence. A noble character is the result of self-discipline, of the subjection of the lower to the higher nature--the surrender of self for the service of love to God and man. {Ed 57.4}

A non-believer can read the Bible all day long, can listen to the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit day in and day out, but if there are no believers experiencing the promises of God - then the word of God is an insult to their hopes and dreams. How important, then, is it that we, as the remnant people of God, imitate the sinless example of Jesus, that we stop making excuses for our frequent failures, that we start living our lives in such a way that there is no doubt, in the minds of the onlooking world and universe, that God is everything He says about Himself in the Bible!

Everything depends upon the children of God, the people of the remnant church, to prove that righteousness by faith is real and that it works wonderfully. God's reputation is at stake. The entire great controversy falls or stands on it. If God cannot produce perfect people then it's His word against Satan's.

DA 671
Of the Spirit Jesus said, "He shall glorify Me." The Saviour came to glorify the Father by the demonstration of His love; so the Spirit was to glorify Christ by revealing His grace to the world. The very image of God is to be reproduced in humanity. The honor of God, the honor of Christ, is involved in the perfection of the character of His people. {DA 671.3}

Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Provide the evidence and you take away the faith.

Romans 14:23 says, "But, the one doubting, if he eats, he has been condemned, because it is not of faith; and all that is not of faith is sin."

What does it mean by all that is not of faith is sin?

And what about Christ's response below in relatioh to what Thomas had said?

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen Me you have believed. Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.