Go Ahead and Laugh

We are facing many national issues, economic issues, and moral issues. Things look bad, but I have some advice for true blood washed Holy Spirit filled believers: LAUGH! Now before you think I am endorsing the "holy laughter movement" which I am not, I want you to read the following excerpt from Perfect, Yet Pressing written in the 1800's:

"Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not nor be afraid of them; for the Lord, thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee nor forsake thee." Deut. 31:6.

I might stop there, might I not? There are passages of Scripture that fill me with triumphant, holylaughter. This is one of them. There is nothing the Lord more emphatically assures his saints than that he is going before them and with them, that he is going to do all the fighting, and that all they need to do is to come along. To put that assurance in the same verse with "Be strong," etc., is what makes me laugh. If the Lord is going with me, in me, before me, behind me, above me, beneath me, and is going to fight all the battles for me, and if all that I have to do is go along with him, what have I to be afraid of?

I am not a strong man. Once in a while I drift in with a great big man, like Rev. William B. Osborne. There is a satisfaction in being with such a big man. Often Brother Osborne has said to me, "Let me get hold of that valise." It would not be a burden to him. All I had to do was just go along without bothering about the thing!

Moral cowardice! Spiritual cowardice! Faint-heartedness! Fearful-heartedness ! Always ready to run! Discouraged at every difficulty! Always seeing the walled cities and the giants! Always seeing everything and everybody but Almighty God! There is nothing so contagious as a panic. God says, "I have been with you, I have nursed and cared for you, you have never wanted for bread or for shoes, and now that you stand upon the borders of Canaan, I am with you. Be not afraid."

Talk about us being brave, when God is for us, and with us, and in us, fighting our battles, and is all in all to us! When I read passages like that, I laugh to think how safe I am -- to think how oddly those two things about God and courage sound together in the same verse! Where is the room for fear? We will not get a panic on us the next time, will we, when something turns up, or goes wrong, or that we are quite sure will go wrong? We will not get all in a tremble, because some big fellow plants himself right across our path, will we? No, we will take God, with all the infinite resources in him.

Now, you can see that one of the best things the believer can do, is laugh out loud! What does the sanctified crowd have to fear? Absolutely nothing is the answer. Get to a place where you can laugh!