THE writer was sitting, a few days ago, in a shelter provided for tramway passengers, waiting for a car, when a young lady entered and sat down also. Under her arm she held a book, evidently taken from some library, the title of which was read, and re-read, with a growing feeling of horror at such an appropriation! “When God laughs.” Who the writer of the volume is or was I know not, or the contents of the work —in appearance a novel—but that reckless title! Solemnly the words of Scripture floated over memory— “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh” (Prov. 1:2626I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; (Proverbs 1:26)).
Yes, four times over in His unerring word does God refer to His “laughing.” In Psalm 2 it is written, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and their rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath” (vers. 2-5). And in Psalm 37 it is written again, “The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him; for he seeth that his day is coming” (vers. 12, 13).
Also Ps. 59:7, 8, “Behold, they belch out with their mouth; swords are in their lips; for who, say they, doth hear? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.”
And again, the verses above quoted, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh” (Prov. 1:24-2624Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; (Proverbs 1:24‑26)).
And four times over also in the same Book of God is it recorded of His guilty creature man that he laughed at Him!
In Matt. 9:2424He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. (Matthew 9:24), Mark 5:4040And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. (Mark 5:40), and Luke 8:5353And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. (Luke 8:53), these five awful little words occur, “They laughed him to scorn.” “They”! Who were they? A few poor puny creatures, gaining their pitiful livelihood by simulating grief they did not feel, hired to weep over departed loved ones they had not lost; who could dry their tears and check their sobs at a moment’s notice to laugh—laugh derisively—at whom? “They laughed him to scorn.” And who was He? They very Truth itself! The One who “spake and it was done, who commanded, and it stood fast,” who was exactly what I say unto you, “the Creator God,” their Creator God—yes, they laughed Him to scorn, as He stood by the couch of the sleeping maiden and declared, “The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.”
And again, in a darker hour, even amid the horrors of Calvary, that same holy Sufferer declared, “All they that see me laugh me to scorn” (Psalm 22:77All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, (Psalm 22:7)).
He was there, the holy Martyr, suffering from their guilty, nay, lawless hands, for righteousness’ sake. He was there, the holy Victim, bearing the wrath of God against sin—the very sin that reached its climax in the guilt that murdered Him —and then and there, in those unutterable horrors, they “laughed him to scorn”!
God is righteous; He is a God of recompenses, and He will laugh in His turn. But oh, my reader, before that day comes, before His wrath burneth as an oven, turn to Him. Now the fullest, freest, welcome of infinite grace awaits every sinner that comes to Him! The work that Jesus has accomplished is infinite in value. He has atoned for sins, and He is the propitiation for the whole world, so that not one need perish—yet “if ye believe not that I am,” said our Lord, “ye shall die in your sins. Whither I go, ye cannot come.” But now He calls you to be reconciled. Why go on in your rebellion? Why continue with those who mock and spurn Him until too late? If you refuse His offer now, there shall be no reconciliation for you when He shall have reconciled all things to Himself. God grant no reader of these pages may ever know the dread reality of His laugh against them for all eternity.
T.