Mark Twain is recorded as having wrote 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.”

Atheists love to claim Twain as one of their own, but anybody who really 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 (as presented in the Bible) and laid into Him anything and everything.

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Some months back, Jordan recalled watching a special on C-SPAN set in Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Mo., and hosted by humorist Roy Blunt—a Mark Twain aficionado—and a woman historian.

“Somebody called in and asked the question, ‘What did Twain believe about God and what was his relationship to religion?’ ” said Jordan. “Well, the answer that 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 argue with Him?’

“Roy said, ‘Twain believed in God, he just believed God was a mean, nasty, wicked guy because there was all this suffering in the world and Twain thought, If you can be God and let all that suffering go on—and you could stop it but you don’t—

you’re a mean, nasty guy.’ ”

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The amazing reality is that how both in the Old and New Testaments the overall impact of and natural reaction to miracles was to cause people NOT to believe.

“When people today say, ‘Have God stop all the evil and suffering in the world and I’ll believe in Him,’ what they’re really saying is, ‘Show us a miracle and we’ll believe in you,’ ” explains Jordan. “But listen to me, what happens in the Scriptures from beginning to end is when you see people exposed to miraculous events—to the suspending of the laws of nature, the supernatural laws—instead of it engendering and sparking faith, invariably it sparks unbelief. And even in the cases where it does spark faith, that faith is never sustained for a long period of time.”

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Jordan says there are two systems at work biblically when it comes to faith in God: One system says, “If I don’t see it, I’m not going to believe it; seeing is believing.” The other says, “Believing is seeing.”

What the resurrected Jesus said to Doubting Thomas, after he miraculously stood before him and invited him to touch his hands and side, was, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Similarly, 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: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”

Jordan says, “Most people think that a miracle is the answer: ‘If God would just show a miracle, people would believe.’ Well, why is that?

“Let me ask you, when you’re wrong about something, do you like somebody just to stick it in your face that you’re wrong? There’s that great line of Clint Eastwood’s: ‘Nag, nag, nag.’

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

“Well, Romans 1 says, ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 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.’

“You can do all the mental gymnastics you want to but the fact is everybody knows there’s a God and that they’re going to face Him in judgment. They know His eternal power and His godhead. They’re without excuse.

“You see, your old sin nature says, ‘I want to be God.’ Now what does a miracle do to that? It sticks it in your face that God’s God! You aren’t God and you old sin nature doesn’t like that! That’s why miracles are not conducive to causing a person to believe—because they’re telling you about something that’s the OPPOSITE of what you want!

“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 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 benefit. That was part of her blessing package. So the miracle demonstrates the benefit of believing. But first they had to believe that He is.

“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.

“When they miss the purpose of the miracle, what did it demonstrate? It demonstrated that they didn’t believe. Psalm 27:13 is a verse that 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.’

“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.’ ”

(Editor’s Note: To be continued . . . )