Miraculous wonderings

Mark Twain is quoted as having written his daughter Clara, “More than once I have been humiliated by my resemblance to God the father; He is always longing for the love of His children and trying to get it on the cheapest and laziest terms He can invent.”

 

While atheists love to claim Twain as one of their own, anybody who studies the life of America’s most famous satirist knows he wasn’t someone who didn’t believe in God; he was someone who DESPISED God and laid into Him on anything and everything.

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Jordan recalls watching a special on C-SPAN set in Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Mo., and hosted by humorist and Twain aficionado, Roy Blunt:

“Somebody called in and asked the question, ‘What did Twain believe about God and what was his relationship to religion?’ Well, the answer the historian gave was that he was an atheist who hated religion, but Roy said, ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s really accurate to call him an atheist because he was always arguing with God, and if you don’t believe there’s a God, why are you always arguing with Him?’

“Roy said, ‘Twain believed in God, he just believed God was a mean, nasty, wicked guy because he’d see all the suffering in the world and Twain thought, If you can be God and let all that suffering go on—and you could stop it—you’re a mean, nasty guy.’ ”

“You heard that before? That’s a common thing. What are they saying? ‘Show us a miracle! Stop all that evil and suffering and I’ll believe in you!’

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“Christians are always looking for some miraculous demonstration from God in their life to prove His love for them, but interest in miracles is not a sign of spiritual maturity, or spirituality, or even spiritual interest, because miracles are physical and you can look at the miracle and not get ANYTHING spiritual out of it.

“Listen to me, in the Bible, the overall impact of miracles is not to cause people to believe—it’s to cause them NOT to believe.

“Now, it shouldn’t be that way. The miracle was designed to confirm the word that God gave them to be believed. Believe it, it’s confirmed.

“But what happens in the Scripture, from the beginning all the way to the end, when you see people exposed to miraculous events to the suspending of natural and supernatural laws, instead of it engendering and sparking faith, invariably it sparks unbelief, and when it does spark faith, it does it in a way that the faith is never sustained for a long period of time.

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“Did you know there were three cities where Jesus did the great majority of His miracles?

“We read about them in Matthew 11: [20] Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
[21] Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
[22] But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
[23] And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
[24] But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

“Now, why did he upbraid them? Here’s the people who saw the majority of His miracles. John 12:37 says, ‘But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him.’

“My point to you is, these guys back here, they saw the feeding of the 5,000, and all they saw was the physical. The physical doesn’t engender faith. It hampers it and it’s that way all through Scripture.

“Immediately you say, ‘Well, why is that?’ Well, let me ask you something. When you’re wrong about something, do you like somebody just to stick it in your face that you’re wrong? Nag, nag, nag.

“Do you want somebody to stick you with the truth and just keep pounding you with it? No, you don’t. When your old sin nature’s wrong, it doesn’t want the truth just stuck in its face over and over and over again.

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"Paul writes in Romans 1: ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
[20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
[21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.’

“You can argue about it, philosophize about it, do all the mental gymnastics you want to, but the fact is everybody knows there’s a God and they’re going to face Him in judgment. They know His eternal power and His godhead. They’re without excuse. Verse 25 says, ‘Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.’

“You see what unsaved man, a lost man, your old sin nature does? It says, ‘I want to be God.’ Now what does a miracle do? It sticks it in your face that God’s God.

“I’ve said for years to people, ‘You want to be God? Go step out onto the street, create you a universe, step in it and you can be God.’ How you doing with that? It don’t work so well.

“You see, that’s what we do. We try to create our own little world so we can be God.

“There’s that old story about how God and Satan got to arguing about making man and who could do a better job. They flipped a coin and Satan won and he reached down and got a little handful of dirt and God said, ‘Wait a minute, guy. Get your own dirt.’

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“Hebrews 11:6 says, ‘But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.’

“Faith for Israel had two steps in it. They had to believe that He’s God and that there’s a benefit for them in submitting to Him. What the miracle demonstrated was the benefit.

“The reason God gave Israel physical deliverances and healings and such was because that was part of Israel’s blessing package. So the miracle demonstrates the benefit of believing. But first they had to believe that He is; they had to believe Him.

“Abraham believed God and that He would confirm His word with the sign following. A miracle is a help AFTER you believe; it comes along and confirms what you believe.

“You got to get this order. You believe, then the confirmation. But if you just have the confirmation, the miracle takes OUT the believing. It takes believing there’s a God out of the realm of faith and puts it in the, ‘He just stuck it in my face; I can’t . . . ’ I mean, when you watch somebody feed 5,000 people, cleanse a leper, raise someone from the dead, you really can’t question whether that’s God or not.

“It’s not a matter of, as I Peter 1 says, 'Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’

“There it is. That’s why they miss the purpose. When they miss the purpose of the miracle, what did it demonstrate? It demonstrated that they didn’t believe.

“Psalms 27:13 is a verse where King David wrote . . . he says, ‘I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.’

“The goodness of the Lord he saw were all these miracles He saw God do, delivering Israel and providing for Israel. He said, ‘I would have fainted if I had not believed to see.’

“There’s the two systems: Seeing is believing and then there’s believing to see. God says, ‘To please me it has to be faith. It has to be believing to see.’ "