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Will Rogers -- probably one of the funniest persons that ever lived and famous for saying things like "when politicians die, they lie still" -- said one time "everything is funny as long it happens to someone else. Somebody else once heard a preacher say "God created us with the ability to have a sense of humor" and responded with "and the fact that the human race was created is proof that God has a sense of humor, Himself!" You can't live for Him long and not realize that God has a sense of humor. I whole heartedly believe that God laughs because we who were created in His image laugh.

It seems that the deepest laughter comes when laughter is sort of out of place. My grandfather's funeral was in the little funeral home of Vivian, Louisiana and was on the corner of two small streets with a four way stop. In the middle of the funeral, right before I was to get up and speak, the silence of the service was broken by a very loud "screeeeeeeeeeeech Honnnnnnnk WHAM!" And then almost immediately we heard somebody screaming at somebody at the top of their lungs: "you idiot, didn't you see to stop?" A distant cousin of mine had been driving to the funeral and in a hurry had come to a rolling stop at the stop sign while the other person had just gunned it and they had met in the intersection and little did they know that the thin walls of the funeral home transferred every sound right into the service. I couldn't help myself: I laughed as did a few other people. I wanted to get down on the floor and roll but I constrained myself, because it did not see the right time to laugh!

I could tell you stories where I think God laughed -- at least I know that I did. Like the time we had a visiting intern "young minister" working for Bro. Wallace and to teach him humility, Bro. Wallace gave him all of the grunt jobs. Because of a hail storm, the roof was leaking badly and it would pour through the acoustic tiles and thoroughly saturate them and cause them to bow like a bowl from the ceiling and so they had to be replaced after every rain. It was a nasty job and so this young minister was grumbling because Bro. Wallace gave it to him. I walked in the sanctuary one day to check on him and got there just in time to see him standing in the balcony in dress clothes with this huge bulging tile directly above him, and it should have been obvious that it was full of nasty water, but as I watched, he took a ball-point pen and jabbed it upwards and of course through the hole poured the water out on his head! I laughed till I cried!

I think God at least had to crack a smile when the piano caught fire during a Sunday morning special song in the middle of a packed house at Bro. Wallace's church. I missed the key change because I was staring at the billowing smoke and the singer went up and I didn't follow her. We massacred that service. Poor Bro. Wallace had to preach after all of that!

Experts say that there are three kinds of smiles possible by human beings. The real smile. The nervous real smile. And the fake smile. The fake smile is the one given you by the car salesman when you walk up. A few years ago, my father-in-law took the whole family on a cruise and one of the things we noticed was the fake smiles on all the staff. There would be a group of staff members all looking like they lost their best friend and you could sneak around behind them and suddenly be close and ask them something and immediately all of them would snap on the fake smile like turning on a switch!

Experts say the difference between the fake smile and the real smile is whether or not the eyes get involved. In a fake smile, the eyes don't move and in a real one the brows raise or the eyes scrunch. And experts say that people laugh genuinely when they are anxious or when they are truly happy.

The scripture said in our text that there is a proper time and a right season for everything and that includes laughter. And so I'm preaching to you tonight that God is not against laughter as long as it is the proper time for laughter. But in the kingdom of God there is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh. I'm not preaching about laughter out of place in the physical world because even after this message I will probably continue to get cracked up in funerals and when people fall and such. What I am preaching is that in spiritual things, there is a proper time to laugh.

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When God visited Abram in the book of Genesis and promised the older couple a son to come, the scriptures say that

And that Sarah also:

And the scripture says that God responded with:

Their laughter was not in true happiness but in disbelief at something that God had said which seemed nigh until impossible. And so we learn an important principle when it is not the time to laugh:

In Luke 8, we find the story of Jesus entering the home of a little girl that had died. To all those who wept and mourned for the deceased Jesus spoke:

Their laughter was not in true happiness but in the fact that He implied that she was about to wake up even though she was dead. Like Sarah having a child at ninety years of age, for someone to raise somebody from the dead seemed to farfetched to the humanity present and so they laughed, but let me tell you their laughter of disbelief was out of place because Sarah had a child and the little girl got up! The scriptures say that Sarah laughed when she became pregnant and even named the boy "Isaac" which means "laughter" because God turned her laughter of disbelief into a true happiness and joy! The laughter of disbelief outside the home of the little girl was eventually drowned out by the genuine laughter of the girl's parents as they rejoiced in the fact that their little girl got up!

I'm preaching to some people who when you heard some of the promises of God that at first you laughed with disbelief and thought it near impossible. Me a "saint?" Ha! Me somebody who looks forward to going to church? Ha! Me someone who studying the Bible and rejoices about it? Ha!! Me praying for people to be healed? Ha! Me receiving the Holy Ghost and speaking in what? Ha Ha! Me believe that?! Ha! Like Sarah you laughed at what seemed to you an impossibility but oh, God has like Sarah turned your laughter of disbelief into genuine joy because what you though impossibility has become a possibility and now the smile is not in a lack of faith but in true rejoicing at what God has done!

And so let me preach to you:

Forget blinded eyes and deaf ears! Look at the change and work that God has brought about in the life of some who thought it was impossible! And so now's the time to laugh! Now's the time to rejoice! If you laughed at the promises of God, then you surely ought to laugh now that the promises have come true! And it ought to be a genuine laughter that springs out of our experience.

Let me clarify something in our church. Many of you have got a great revelation of praise and worship, but let's make sure that we stay on the right track. We are commanded to praise God. We are commanded to clap our hands and such. There is never an option to the scriptures about such, but rather "let everything that has breath, praise ye the Lord." There is no clause that says "if you feel like it at this moment" or any other out clause. And many of you don't have a problem with those commands.

But let me clarify something lest we misunderstand the Word of God. There might be some who interpret those scriptures as a God who demands us to praise Him because He is "full of Himself." Sure, He is worthy, but He does not want praise that is given to Him just for the commandment's sake. But I believe that God wants to work in your life so that you desire to praise Him because of what He has done. I believe that God wants to reveal Himself to you as a good and merciful God so that your praise springs naturally from your true inward feelings. He wants you to dance, but not to dance just to say "I obeyed the commandment that said 'dance before the Lord'." He wants you to dance because you feel like dancing because of your great revelation of who He is or because of the great things that He has done for you. He doesn't want empty actions, but true praise that springs from a thankful heart towards Him. The scripture says:

Just as a good parent desires to see their child truly happy, so does God desire to see us smile! Why did He create the entire Garden of Eden and all of the animals and put Adam in it? Because He wanted to see Adam happy. We tend to forget that our less than perfect environment is because of our sin and not necessarily because of God's will. And the counter scripture to the one that we just read says:

God will eventually put our physical environment right in a new heaven and a new earth and new Jerusalem! But right now, He puts our spiritual environment back to what it should be by giving us the Holy Ghost! Listen to this preacher: Why did God give the Holy Ghost? He had people like David who praised Him exuberantly without it! He had people step out on faith in the Old Testament without the Holy Ghost. But He has given us the Holy Ghost because He genuinely enjoys seeing us filled with the excitement and joy of His Spirit moving through and living within us! Is it a commandment to praise God? Yes, but if that's how you view it only, you have missed the point because God desires to bless us and for our happiness to translated into our praise and worship. That doesn't mean that I praise God only when I'm happy, but rather that I praise God because no matter how the physical world has gone, I'm happy spiritually! Sure I've got to live in this sinful, imperfect world, but I'm going to a better place and God has given me a taste of what is to come in the Holy Ghost moving now!

Sure there will be times in our life when deep, heartfelt worship because of who He is becomes the proper response and such a worship is fulfilling but is deep and more serious. There are those who might weep in His presence in such a way. But let us never forget that praise is also sometimes in order in the Spirit. Simply to clap your hands and sing unto Him because you are happy and fulfilled in the Spirit is proper too! And yet it should not just be a duty, but something that springs from what He has done in our life! God loves to see us happy and loves our praise best when it springs from happiness! God loves a cheerful giver! He is concerned with the level of happiness of His children!

The Bible says that sin brings pleasure for a moment, but it is a fleeting moment. And the Bible goes on to say:

In Bible days, if wood was scarce then they would often be forced to gather thorn bushes to start their fire, and the thorns make the loud crackling noises of a roaring fire yet without true heat and they don't last any time at all and are basically worthless to cook upon or for sustained heat. The laughter of the fool, or the laughing of the sinners, is like that crackling thorns. It's loud and intense for a few seconds but doesn't last and doesn't live up to what it sounds like it is.

Remember the next time you see a beer commercial where models are smiling at the camera with a can in each hand and the slogan says "the good times are here." They are laughing and having a blast, but remember it's the crackling of the thorns. It sounds like fulfillment but it doesn't last very long. The buzz of the night before quickly gives away to the heartache and the hangover of morning. And when it is all finished, it turns out the excitement and the fun wasn't genuine because it didn't deliver as promised. Budweiser has never healed a relationship. Drugs have never brought a family closer. Sin has never brought pleasure for more than just a brief season and like the crackling of the thorns in the fire do not put out enough energy and light for a fulfilled life. It may take more effort and energy to get an oak log on the fire, but know that the results will be lasting and worth the effort! Fool! Don't laugh at me and say what I am missing out on as you go to your party, because when you are depressed from the pleasure ending of your moment of crackling, I'll still be smiling and even closer to God and the party of the ages! As your life progresses you will find that such a lifestyle as only brought heartache and pain and division and regrets, while my log of the Word of God is still putting out heat and warmth and satisfaction! It's not the time to laugh when sin's brief crackling of pleasure is being reaped, but:

Jesus told His disciples when they returned happy that they had been able to cast out devils and do the miraculous:

He told the man lying before Him:

This is before Jesus healed the man! Why would He say such a thing? I believe in both instances that Jesus was teaching us a principle that it's easy to get happy over things that we can visibly see that God has done, but yet there are things in the spiritual sense that although can't be seen with the naked eye, they are much more a big deal! Listen to this preacher: Lazarus eventually died again. He was resurrected but he eventually died a natural death. The lame man that walked is not walking today because he is dead. And yet today his sins being forgiven are much more important than his being able to walk for a few years, because his sins being forgiven means that he will be able to walk for eternity!

We tend to be happy or sad dependent upon whether or not we get the physical miracle, but I believe God is grieved when we rejoice more over a physical miracle than we do salvation. We should praise God over an illness being healed, but we ought to praise Him more over His forgiving our sins and washing them away and filling us with His Spirit! If God heals you ever time you get sick, and then you eventually die and yet you are lost, then what was that to you? But if He never touches you physically and yet you are saved for eternity, then what does it matter whether or not He heals you?! "Which is the greater miracle?" is what Jesus asked the crowd that day. Is it greater and harder to forgive sins or to do a physical healing or cast out a devil? Those who would dance over blinded eyes being opened and yet cannot even rejoice when one sinner comes to repentance or seeks God and is baptized or filled with the Holy Ghost has very little spiritual understanding and is only looking through physical eyes. If you praise God more because He touched your body than you do for washing your sins away, then you are looking through carnal eyes and human eyes and not as God wants you to see. The time to laugh and rejoice is when God has forgiven your sins! The realization of what has happened ought to make you giddy with happiness! Your sin was darker and more of a death sentence than ever cancer or heart disease can be! And God miraculously cleansed you!

And just a thought: could it be that some churches don't see the miraculous because they would rejoice more over the supernatural healings and such than they did over their sins being forgiven and God not wanting them to be out of balance, cannot send the miraculous because of their lack of genuine appreciation as to what He has done in their spiritual man? Just a thought . . .

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I'm preaching to you about "a time to laugh!" And so let us change direction a bit and realize that it is time to laugh when it is a time that God laughs! We should learn to smile when we are in a situation what causes God to smile! Surely God who does right only laughs when it is the proper time!? And so surely we would agree that when God smiles, it's the right time that we should smile and laugh and be cheerful also!

There is not an individual Hebrew word for "smile" and instead they used several phrases to express the idea which are translated in literal English something as "to cause your face to shine." The word smile may not be a common word in the Bible, but a smile is what is meant when is says things such as "that the Lord's face might shine upon thee." In other words: "may God smile!"

I did a study this week of all of these phrases to see what it is that makes God smile. I wanted scriptural proof for what makes God laugh with genuine happiness. There seemed to be three major areas of God's smiling. One was expected and the other two were a bit of a surprise.

The one area that I figured was coming is that God smiles and rejoices when a backslider turns back to Him. The psalmist said:

God's face shines when a backsliding soul, church, or nation comes to repentance and is restored! This is nowhere more evidenced by the story of the prodigal son where the father told the eldest:

We ought to smile at what God smiles at and it is proper to laugh when God is happy, and so when someone who was wayward makes their way back to Him, we ought to rejoice and celebrate and laugh. It's not the time to sulk that God is showing them special attention by giving them the opportunity to repent, but rather a time to laugh and celebrate!

I expected that one, but what caught me off guard was after using the phrases of "His face to shine" over twenty times in the Old Testament to refer to God smiling, we find in the New Testament that the phrases of "face shining" is only used to refer to the person of Jesus Christ. Listen to these scriptures:

Realizing what the phrase "face to shine" means in scripture, it is noteworthy that these are the only two scriptures in the New Testament which use the phrase are both are talking about God being revealed through the person of Jesus Christ. Simply put: Jesus Christ is the smile of God revealed to mankind. When you see Jesus, you are seeing the manifestation of God's happiness! Jesus moving and ministering is the manifestation of God laughing.

There is no need for a verse counterpart of "Jesus wept." I have heard some ask "how come it never says 'Jesus laughs' or 'Jesus smiles?'" It would have been redundant because Jesus Christ was the very smile of God revealed to mankind! Whatever you see Jesus doing, is what makes God happy. He smiled at the opportunity to teach us His ways. He smiled at the opportunity to save us by dying on the cross. He smiled and rejoiced that He was able to heal our sickness and deliver us from the works of Satan. He smiled to be able to promise us a better future in a better place! He laughed and enjoyed the fact that we might get the revelation of who He really is! He smiles that we can receive Him in Spirit form and live life abundantly. If "Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the Bible, then "God smiled" is the longest because we see God's smile and joy in the entire coming and works and manifestation of Jesus Christ! Jesus was God's smile upon us!

I'm preaching to you: Jesus wept but for a few moments at Lazarus' graveside, but He rejoices when we allow His smile to operate through our lives even today! And so we ought to laugh at His smile! Not a laugh of unbelief or scorn, but of genuine happiness! If you know who Jesus is and He has done great things in your life, then know that it's in order; it's the proper time; it's a time to laugh and rejoice!

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And so we come to the conclusion of this "happy" sermon with somewhat of surprise. Many times when the scriptures record that God "laughed," it is in reference to enemies coming against His works are His children in a mighty way. As strange as it sounds, nothing makes God laugh more than when the enemy does His best. Listen to some of these scriptures:

The kings of the earth had gathered together a mighty army to come against the Lord and His anointed. The enemy has made plans to tear apart the people of God and what does God do? He laughs. Listen to this verse:

The wicked plots about how he can make the righteous fall and destroy God's people. What does God do when the wicked come against His people? "The Lord laughs at him."

After talking about all the enemies and threats coming his way, the psalmist says "but you O Lord, laugh at them!"

Maybe it catches you off guard but when the enemy is doing his best to destroy you and kill you and persecute you and you are freaking out and doubting and panicking and nervous, you need to remember what the Bible says that the One who sits in the heavens is doing: He is laughing. Not at your unbelief and not making light of your situation but He is laughing at what the enemy has done because He knows that even if the enemy brings His best ploy and gathers all the kings of the earth and every army against His people, if His people call on Him it won't be much of a fight! He's laughing because He is saying "is this all you can do, devil?" God's laughing because He knows how easy it will be to deliver you from even the greatest attack! And so when the threats and persecution comes against you, SURPRISE! God laughs!

In our text in Luke is the only time the Greek word for laughter is used in the New Testament. And in context Jesus is talking about when troubles and persecution comes in your life:

When the enemy comes against you and persecution is the strongest and men hate you and ostracize you and hurt you and insult you, "be glad in that day and leap for joy!" It's a time to laugh is what Jesus said! Why?

Before they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7, the scriptures record that the accusers looking saw:

Like the face of an angel! I believe that what they saw in Stephen when the accusations were going forth was a genuine, God-given smile. I don't believe that he was worried that they might kill him. I think that he was smiling genuinely because he was about to be given an opportunity to preach Christ one more time to these hard-headed souls! And it unnerved them! It wasn't a natural human response! It was like an angel, it was something derived from the heavenlies! Most humans would have been frowning at the false accusations and the threat of death, but Stephen was locked in to something else and as his enemy rose up, he smiled!

Before the day was over, as the stone rained down upon Stephen, we find his reason for "his having the face of an angel."

Stephen saw the smile of God and decided that since God was smiling, he would smile! Even as the stones took his physical body, he was able to smile knowing that their stones and words would never be able to steal his eternal reward and the opportunity to be with God for eternity!

You r trial and the worst attack of the enemy on your life are times to laugh because you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you! God is smiling because He knows that they cannot win; so should we! No matter what Will Rogers said, even if it is happening to you, you can smile, because God is on your side, therefore it's a time to laugh!