Proverbs 1:26
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I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
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Wisdom laughs. Ha-ha! Wisdom mocks. You're not so tough now, fool. Wisdom laughs and ridicules men suffering calamities and terrorized with fear. There is no cruelty here, just the sound of divine justice making fun of fools and scorners who rejected instruction.
He who laughs last, laughs best. Lady Wisdom and the LORD laugh last, and best! But this is no laughing matter for us; for these are some of the most sober words in Scripture. Men refusing to listen to instruction will be destroyed without mercy (1:20-32).
Fools and scorners laugh at those who try to teach, correct, and warn them. They hate them for trying to spoil their party (9:7-8). When a horrible calamity lands on their heads and painful fear arrives in their hearts, it is only fitting that Lady Wisdom, who offered to save them, should be filled with laughter and ridicule her enemies, as they are destroyed.
This view of wisdom, and the God of wisdom, is not popular in our effeminate and compromising age (II Tim 3:4-5; Heb 12:28-29). Laughter and ridicule at the horrible pain and morbid fear of fools and scorners are right! Do you know this God, reader? Or have you been taught fables about a make-believe sugar daddy in the sky?
Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD?" and rejected Moses (Ex 5:2). After ten horrible plagues, like frogs, lice, and flies, and funerals for all the firstborn of Egypt, his accountants told him Israel had left with the nation's wealth. Driving furiously along the dry seabed, the chariot wheels came off the best chariot Egypt could produce, and Pharaoh was given a few minutes to realize his chariot was moving very slowly on its axle and the waters on both sides looked very unstable! Heaven rang with God's laughter (Rom 9:17), and the seashore rang with Israel's mocking song and dance (Exo 15:1-21)!
Space and time do not permit to tell the details of the flood, when those who laughed and mocked at Noah were slipping under the waves with gopher wood under their fingernails and their mouths and nasal passages full of water. It was a calamity! It was fearful! But don't think God and wisdom were wringing their hands in regret. These drowned wretches were intolerable, wicked haters of God and were disobedient to Noah's plain preaching for many years (Heb 11:7; I Pet 3:18-20). Now do you know this God, reader?
God laughs at the judgment of the wicked (Ps 37:13). He holds the heathen in derision (Ps 59:8), and He laughed derisively when destroying His Son's enemies (Ps 2:4). It was so bad in that horrific calamity that men's hearts were failing them for fear (Luke 21:16).
He sent Elijah to mock the prophets of Baal (I Kings 18:26-27) and Isaiah to ridicule the idiots who made graven images (Is 44:9-20). From the lead of their Heavenly Father, the righteous laugh and rejoice at the desolation of the wicked (Ps 52:5-7; 58:5). We find the sanctified martyrs in heaven rejoicing at God's vengeance (Rev 6:9-11; 18:20; 19:1-4).
When Lady Wisdom, personifying God's wisdom, offers you instruction and wisdom, you better take it. Irremediable judgment is coming, if you do not (29:1). You may think you are getting away with your carelessness, but God is about to tear you in pieces (Ps 50:21-22)! Humble yourself before His Word and tremble lest you miss a single one!
What should we do? Our blessed Lord Jesus said it perfectly, "Take heed therefore how ye hear" (Luke 8:18). And, "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder" (Matt 21:44). And "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him" (Luke 12:4-5).
Do this. Cornelius gathered his relatives and friends to meet Peter in Caesarea. He told him bluntly, "Thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God" (Acts 10:33). When our beloved brother Paul met the Lord Jesus Christ, he had the only appropriate response to the divine sovereignty of this glorious King. He said, and every sober reader should say it with him, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6). Amen.
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