Ye Shall Laugh (con't)

The Hebrew word for Laugh is Tsachaq pronounced tsaw-khak'. It means to laugh, mock, play, to jest to sport, play, make sport, toy with, make a toy of . The first mention of laughter in the Bible is in Genesis 17:17. What is Abraham laughing at?

Abraham falls on his face. Which means, he is humble and reverent before the LORD. He laughs in joy with God about himself and Sarah’s being able to have a baby. He doesn’t question God’s promise at all in unbelief. Look at Romans 4:20, Paul tells us that Abraham does not waver at God’s promise in unbelief. This is Scripture interpreting Scripture and is the #1 rule in Bible study. Since Abraham never wavered in unbelief, we then know that Abraham’s questions here were in awesome marvel at the power of God not in unbelief of His promise. More at wonder as in the question asked like this: “So this is how powerful you are Lord? You can quicken the dead womb of an old woman?”

Isn’t it wonderful that the first recorded laughter is between God and Man?

I just spent a lovely afternoon reading some blogs and they were hilarious. So much so, that I got my exercise for the day. [shocked look] You didn't know? Laughter is jogging on the inside :)

Okay, I'll share a story from a friend named Bob (lost touch with him but I'm sure he wouldn't mind).

From Bob…
2 Kings 6:24-7:20 is a funny story when you think about it.
The city is under siege, and bad things are happening. Everyone is starving and in rags. The king's right hand man questions Elisha and God Himself when Elisha says, "It'll all be better tomorrow", and Elisha warns, "You'll see it, but you won't touch it." So what does God do? He uses four lepers.

Imagine these guys sitting around. The leader of the group says, "Hey, I got an idea! Let's go surrender to the enemy." Oh, yeah, this guy's on the ball. "No, wait, think about it. What's the worse that could happen?" "Hey, bright guy, they could kill us." "Yeah, but if we sit here we'll die anyway. They could take us prisoner and feed us." So they hump off across the desert . . . and God uses the sound of four pitiful lepers to frighten the entire camp into retreat. (That calls up funny images.)

So these guys suddenly find themselves to be the richest, best fed guys in the territory. And suddenly the leader speaks up again. "Hey, guys, we do not do well." What???!!! He's lost it again. "No, we need to share with the rest." So they go tell the city.

The final irony is the king's right hand man. The last thing he ever said was, "Hold it, ladies, line up." And they trampled him in the gate, fulfilling the prophecy.

What a hoot...