Have you ever seen a gypsy’s fire just set alight? How the thorns crackle right merrily! But how transient is the crackling as the fire settles down soberly to the task of making the pot boil! This is a homely illustration of king Solomon’s beautiful metaphor respecting the LAUGHTER OF FOLLY.
He says, “As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool.”
Mark it is the laughter of the fool.
Say, stout-hearted infidel, does the term “fool” apply to you? You say there is no God. What says the Scripture? “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. 14:1). The scoffing laugh and infidelity go together. Have a care. That laugh is the laugh of a downright fool. For see, the thorns crackle but to be consumed. The infidel laughs on the brink of a burning hell. What folly! His intellect may proudly persuade him to thoroughly disbelieve in such a place; but, nevertheless, his unbelief does does not alter the fact one bit. Said an infidel to me the other day, “My existence is the most profound mystery to me. Why I exist I know not. I am an agnostic. All is dark.” Infidelity only takes the candle of the word of God out of the hand of its votaries and leaves them in the dark. Infidel, thou art drifting down to hell. Thou hast to meet God, and thou canst not browbeat Him. There will be no laughter in hell.
Say, prosperous, hard-headed business man does the term “fool” apply to you? The Bible speaks of a certain rich farmer. His hard work and his care, combined with God’s bountiful hand in providence, had brought him a handsome competency. His barns were bursting with his goods. He will build larger. He will house his riches safely. He will say to his soul, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” Such were his communings within himself. All men spoke well of him.
But that night God spake to him. “Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” Go he must, leave his hard-earned wealth just when about to enjoy, it! Yes! No lease could he take of his life. His laugh of good-tempered, sleek satisfaction was but the laugh of a downright fool. He forgot God, and great was his eternal loss.
Oh! ye infidels, ye businessmen, ye pleasure-seekers, ye who make a mock at sin, ye mere professors—oil-less lamp-holders—none but Christians have the right to be merry. You think they are melancholy and long-faced. You mistake. They have everything to make them happy. As for you, death and judgment lie athwart your path. Listen! “A sword is sharpened, and also furbished; it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter: it is furbished that it may glitter: SHOULD WE THEN MAKE MIRTH?” (Ezek. 21:9-10).
Let the laughter of folly die away on your lips, and let the cry of anxiety come bursting from your heart, “What must I do to be saved?” Do! Prayers and tears, and alms-giving and sacrament-taking, and Bible-reading and good works, will never do. There is no atonement in these things. The divine answer is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Is that too good to be true, think you? Well, carry your mind back. You remember that beautiful, patriarchal scene long ago on the plains of Mamre.
God, graciously disguised, partakes of the hospitality of the aged Abraham. He tells him he shall have a son—a son of promise. Sarah, hearing this in her tent, laughs the LAUGH OF UNBELIEF.
God heard that laugh, and said, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Sarah, judging on mere natural grounds, thought it an impossibility for her to dandle the child of her old age—to see him grow into a stalwart man, to be the stay of her weakness and the light of her eyes. So she laughed that laugh of unbelief. Something like you, when you read God’s offer of pardon and salvation to everyone who simply believes on the Lord Jesus, and then believe it is presumptuous for anyone to say he is saved. Friend, do not consult your own thoughts, but God’s word. It says to you, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
But see how differently Abraham acted; God made a covenant of blessing with him, and told him he would bless him with this child of promise. “Thou shalt call his name Isaac [laughter]: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” As he heard the promises of God he laughed within himself, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” How quickly he gives his wife her new name—not Sarai, but Sarah, a princess. (“She shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her,” said God.) His laugh was the LAUGH OF FAITH.
His faith shone. He believed God. The promises were great, but the Promiser was greater. His faith was tested, for the promise was not fulfilled for several years. But he waited in quiet confidence, for he knew that nothing was too hard for the Lord. Have you learnt this lesson, dear, doubting one? The apostle Paul uses, in his own masterly way, this incident. He says, “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness” (Rom. 4:20-22). How simple and beautiful! But stay, read on. “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, IF WE BELIEVE ON HIM that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Look away then from yourself and your own thoughts, and believe God. Christ has died. Atonement has been made. And now, through simple faith in Jesus, the Saviour in glory, God will give you salvation, forgiveness, justification, peace. Once more, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).