To Encourage You

Psalm 2:4 “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.”

So often when we think of the word “mock” when it comes to religious things, we think of men mocking other men, and in particular unbelievers who mock believers.  The leading atheists of the day are like this; men like Richard Dawkins or, before his death, Christopher Hitchens.  These men mock not only those who believe in God, but they mock the very idea of God.  They even see religion and specifically Christianity as a threat that the world needs to be rid of. This is, of course, nothing new as we find those whom the psalmist writes about saying the same thing. For example, in Psalm 2 we hear the voice of the atheist recorded in these words: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us (Psalm 2:2-3).’”  You see, the main concern of the atheist is the restrictions on his or her freedom that the presence of a God Who is a judge and lawgiver demands of them.  They want nothing to do with this limitation to their sinful choices, so they try to rid the entire world of not only the idea of sin, but the idea of a God who defines what sin is.  The world mocks and laughs at God and His true followers.  In fact, so much of what we see in the world today is laughter, not just at God Himself, or his followers, but also at sin – a certain “rejoicing in iniquity” which is the opposite of godly love according to 1 Corinthians 13.  Just spend five minutes flipping through the TV channels and take note of all the laughter and what everyone is laughing about. 

So, if God does indeed exist, what’s His reaction to all this.  Well, in the verse above we are told that God laughs.  In fact, he derisively laughs at men who would try to ignore Him and live as if He doesn’t matter at all, or even worse, who think that they can fight against Him.  How ignorant and weak men are in comparison to the almighty God.  God, the omniscient One, who knows how many grains of sand there are, Who knows the weight of all the world’s mountains, Who knows the names of every star, Who knows how many hairs are on every head, and Who knows every sparrow that falls, laughs at those who think they know more than He does.  It must be almost beyond His comprehension, as if anything indeed is, that man, who is so very limited, thinks he can dictate anything to the One who alone is unlimited in every conceivable way. It must be like watching ants, whose whole lives are spent in an ant hill, who only ever really communicate in any way with other ants, discussing how brilliant they are concerning everything in the world around them, when all they really understand very well is the comparable speck on which they live.  May God help us to recognize that it is no laughing matter to laugh at the God Who created us, or to mock the sin that will eventually destroy us.  Perhaps that’s one reason the scriptures tell us that rather than laughing we are to, above all “be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8-9).”  And the primary prey of this enemy of our souls is the mocker who goes through life laughing at things that are anything but laughing matters.