I know this is bizarre, and boy oh boy, I may be wrong! But I’m starting to think there’s a chance – just a chance – that the tears God wipes away after the Great White Throne Judgment might – just might – be tears from side-splitting, knee-slapping, rolling-on-the-ground-till-you-almost-pee-yourself laughter!
Please hear me out. 😉
If you had asked me a couple weeks ago what I thought of the Great White Throne Judgment, I would have said it was very serious and very, very sad. Everyone would be crying. Father God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the angels, the saved, and especially the damned – would be crying. It would be a profoundly sad time. Everyone would be overwhelmed with regret that the damned didn’t get their acts together while they had the chance. The tears everyone cried would be tears of grief – almost unbearable grief for all but the the damned, and tears of completely unbearable grief for the damned. Sadness, tears, moans and groans everywhere. That was my mental picture when I read this passage.
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:11-15 NIV
I now think it’s barely possible this is a hilarious event for everyone but the damned. Let’s start with a passage from Proverbs that took me a very long time to accept. I confess, when I read this passage as a young Christian, I thought it was mistaken. God couldn’t be like this! God couldn’t be anything but sad when people screw up!
“But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you— when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD.”
Proverbs 1:24-29 NIV
I believe this “laughing God” passage can only apply after a wicked person has died. The passage states, “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.” Most everywhere else in the Bible, God longs to answer those who call out to Him.
- Acts 2:21 NIV is directly opposite: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
- Ezekiel 18:23 NIV: “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?“
- 1 Timothy 2:3-4 NIV: “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
As a young Christian it bothered me that this laughing God passage from Proverbs was in the Bible. I didn’t see how it could true! God is just not like that! God is love, right?
At the time I also felt that the parable of the sheep and the goats was wrong. It listed just two groups, the sheep, and the goats. I knew there just had to be a third group, those that didn’t know! My thoughts were like this: “What about the dirt-poor person in Africa or China who never heard the gospel and lived a pretty good, but not perfect life? Don’t they deserve something better than hell, if they don’t deserve heaven? Shouldn’t there be a third group in between heaven and hell for those who just didn’t know?!?!?”
The laughing God and the missing third group on judgment day were on my mind as I did Bible study and listened to sermons at church over the years. The missing third group was especially bothersome. If you look in my old Bibles and in my many Bible study notebooks, you will see WATH frequently. This stands for What About The Heathen? I was to discover WATH is everywhere throughout the Bible. God is deeply concerned about the heathen. He answered my questions. It took years but he did give me understanding.
What happened to me with WATH is why I’m unbothered by someone’s screwed-up theology, so long they are diligently looking for answers in the Bible. God will give understanding to those who really want it. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 NIV
For space, I will just state my WATH conclusions, not develop them. There are only two groups on judgment day, the sheep and the goats. There is no third in-between group. On judgment day no one is surprised to be either a sheep or a goat. The sheep know they responded to the call from God in their hearts. The goats will know each time they rejected the call from God in their hearts. The whole creation points the searching heart to God. God has the wisdom to righteously judge what each person did with what they knew. No, no one is surprised on judgment day. Each sheep knows why it is a sheep. Each goat knows why it is a goat. Period.
Another factor in laughing God is why God made man. A one-sentence trailer: God did not create you so you could do whatever the hell you want. See my longer trailer, The Parable of the Horses.
We do have Christ’s mind here and now, so it is possible to understand laughing God.
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 NIV
Though we do have the mind of Christ, at present, our mortal minds are very limited.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:8-12 NIV
In the fall in the Garden of Eden, man became aware of evil.
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
Genesis 3:22 NIV
When I am a citizen of heaven, I won’t have any evil. If I did, I couldn’t enter.
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Revelation 21:22-27 NIV
Therefore, with the mind of Christ in me, not limited and restricted by sin and evil, I will be able to see things from God’s point of view. If God laughs at the wicked, I’ll be able to laugh at the wicked.
Why would God laugh at the wicked? Here is more of Proverbs 1 with relevant parts in bold.
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you— when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD. Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”
Proverbs 1:20-33 NIV
Fact is, God did everything he could to get these wicked people to see the light, but they refused. They chose to believe that there is no God, and that they were free to get away with whatever they could. Well, they won’t. And right smack-dab in the midst of the passage in the Bible, I say again, the “B.” “I.” “B.” “L.” “E.”, God is laughing at the wicked fools.
You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.
Psalm 91:8 NIV
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Galatians 6:7 KJV
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.
Revelation 20:12-13 NIV
Adolph Hitler sowed much evil and killed millions. How will the righteous who suffered and died because of him feel when he reaps what he sowed? What will they say, standing there near the throne? One possibility.
“Oh, you wicked, evil Adolph Hitler! You thought you were really something. You ignored God’s invitations to get right with God! Hahaha! Fool! You thought you could hohoho harm hahaha the apple hehehehe of G-God’s eye, hehehehehe! Hahahaha! And n-now, hehe, you’re, hahahaha, hehehe, oh my, hahaha about to be, hahaha, fl-fl-flung l-like a hehehe b-b-booger hahaha -snort- hehehe into the hohohoho l-l-lake of hehehehe hahahaha f-fire! –snort- HAHAHAHAHA! M-my hahaha p-party hasn’t -snort- even HEHEHEHE -snort- st-st-started hahaha y-yet and y-your -snort- m-m-misery you -snort- HAHAHA CH-CHOSE HOHOHOHO is just HAHAHA -snort- st-starting! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA HEHEHEHE F-fool! -snort- F-f-fool! -snort- HAHAHAHA HEHEHEHEHE!”
Oh, I may be wrong. Very, very wrong. But….. This is Psalm 52 NIV!
Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?
Why do you boast all day long,
you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
You who practice deceit,
your tongue plots destruction;
it is like a sharpened razor.
You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.
You love every harmful word,
you deceitful tongue!
Surely God will bring you down to
everlasting ruin:
He will snatch you up and pluck you
from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of
the living.
The righteous will see and fear;
they will laugh at you, saying,
“Here now is the man
who did not make God his stronghold
but trusted in his great wealth
and grew strong by destroying others!”
But I am like an olive tree
flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love
for ever and ever.
For what you have done I will always
praise you
in the presence of your faithful people.
And I will hope in your name,
for your name is good.
Are you following God's plan for your life?
You should.
Your plan sucks.
It really, really sucks.
Suckage Maximus.
Most people are WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
Jesus is coming.
Are you ready to meet Him?
Give your life to Jesus Christ.
Time is running out.
Lift Up Your Eyes! 