Unsaved people like to argue, “I don’t believe a loving God would send people to hell.”

Or they ask, “Why would a loving God cause such pain and suffering in the world?”

Larry King is one who likes to ask this question whenever something really big happens.

“He tries to act deep and thoughtful, you know, when he asks all these dumb, superficial questions,” says Jordan. “But to the world they’re deep and thoughtful questions. You know why? The world’s in confusion and doesn’t have any answers. The answer to the question of suffering isn’t hard to get; it’s just hard to believe. We like it to be deep.

“Why does a loving God allow such suffering? If He came up and told you what to do, you know what you’d do? ‘Pfffht, I don’t want to listen to you!’

“We got this thing about doing it our own selves anyway. We’re going to do it our way. We’re not going to pay attention to Him. Isn’t that what mankind does? ‘We’ve turned every one to our own ways.’

“God comes and gives the answer, ‘Here, I’ve set before you life and death; choose life!’ and what does man do? He chooses death and now we’re mad at God for the guy choosing death—‘Well, why didn’t He force us to choose life?!’

“If He had, you’d have been griping about that, wouldn’t you? ‘Well, we want to be free; I want to be my own man!’ We brag about how, ‘I‘m the captain of my soul and master of my fate.’ Then we go reap what we sow and go and blame God.

“Any unexplained catastrophe—a hurricane blows your house away and it’s called an ‘act of God.’ Now, if you win the lottery, no one says it’s an ‘act of God.’ You know what that is? That’s a God of your own making. That’s not the God of the Bible.”

*****

The Apostle Paul was not necessarily a gregarious, outgoing person and some would classify him as an introvert.

Jordan explains, “When Paul said, ‘I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,’ he’s not talking about, ‘I’m not embarrassed to stand on the street corner out there.’ Or, ‘I never get the willies when I knock on a door.’ He’s talking about, ‘You know, what I’m preaching to you works and I’m not afraid for you to try it out. I’m not afraid for you to trust Jesus Christ, because when you trust Him it works.”

*****

In Isaiah 44, God says about those who make idols:

“They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.
[10] Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?
[11] Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.
[12] The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.
[13] The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.”

Jordan explains, “This (passage) represents one of those sarcastic sections where God through Isaiah just goes at religion.

“When He says, ‘Their delectable things shall not profit,’ He’s saying, ‘They’ve got all these wonderful, nice things and they don’t do any good. And they are their own witnesses—they see not, nor know, that they may be ashamed.’ He means, ‘If you just go look at it, it’ll witness against itself! It’s dead!’ ”

In regard to verse 13, Jordan says, “Here’s a guy who’s going to carve this piece of wood and he’s going to make it look like himself because he must like himself, I guess. But notice it’s going to look like man; it’s not going to look like God.

“By the way, I Corinthians 11 says ‘the glory of the man is the woman,’ and that’s why most of these idols turn out looking like women, because when a man wants to glory in himself, he’ll glorify the woman. And when he glorifies that woman and that image, he’s glorifying himself.

“There’s the advertising slogan ‘Sex Sells.’ You know why? Because that’s man’s way of glorifying himself. ‘The glory of the man is the woman.’ That’s why religion’s run by women most of the time.”

“By the way, you got any idea why women wear lipstick? I had a conversation with a guy one time who was a buyer for a major grocery chain, and he said, ‘We carry 60 shades of lipstick so we can sell red.’ He explained that 75-80 percent of all lipstick sold is red but you’ve got to have everything else so they’ll come in and (peruse) and then buy the red.

“Well, if you ever wondered why it is women wear lipstick, it’s in Job 41 and it doesn’t have to do with God. Job 41 is about Leviathan, so it’s the other guy.

“Did you ever wonder why women walk around in high-heeled shoes that shove their toes together? Where you’re up on your tippy-toes?

“The origin of that would be Ezekiel 1 and it wouldn’t be talking about someone around the throne of God; it’s talking about somebody who used to be around the throne of God (i.e., Satan). You see, there’s all kind of symbolism in the world that gets explained in the Bible.

“You get caught up in the fashion of the world and you don’t realize where a lot of that stuff comes from and what it’s really about. Now if you had a god, would you rather have a god made out of the trees or a god who made the trees? See that’s the point!

“Well, the psychology of religion isn’t that way. It’s so blind with its own importance; people blinded by their own self-importance that they don’t see the irrationality of it.

“Isaiah 44:20 says, ‘He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?’

“The guy’s just too blinded. Paul said it: ‘But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.’

“Satan blinds their minds by making them think that what they did with their hands is any value to get them by God. And it won’t. Now that’s the psychology of religion—so wrapped up in self-effort that they can’t see the stupidity of it; the futility of it; the uselessness of it.”