Ecclesiastes 3:1,4
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): If we consider what the Preacher here saith, spiritually, there is indeed to everything in grace a season.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): There is a time to laugh, but it is not till sin is pardoned that there is time to dance.
JAMES VAUGHAN (1774-1857): Truth is a grave matter, and can owe little ultimately to the services of a buffoon.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Great care was taken in the service of God’s house to preserve decency, prevent immodesty, and to guard against laughter and levity, and the like care should be always taken.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Yet is not mirth amiss, so it be moderate; nor laughter unlawful.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): If you’re not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.
C. H. SPURGEON: The manufacture of new commandments is a very fascinating occupation for some people. You must not do this, and that, and the other, till one feels like a baby in leading strings. I find ten commandments are more than I can keep without a great deal of grace, and I do not mean to pay the slightest regard to any beyond. Liberty is the genius of our faith, nor do we mean to barter it away for the esteem of modern Pharisees. They say to us, “You shall not laugh on Sunday. You shall never create a smile in the House of God. You shall walk to public service as though you were going to the whipping post, and you shall take care when you preach that you always make your discourse as dull as it can possibly be.” We do not reverence these precepts!
A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): There’s plenty to laugh at in the world―but be sure you don’t laugh at something that God takes seriously.
C. H. SPURGEON: Let it be remembered that every man has his moments when his lighter feelings indulge themselves, and the preacher must be allowed to have the same passions as his fellow men, and since he lives in the pulpit more than anywhere else, it is but natural that his whole man should be there developed; besides, he is not sure about a smile being a sin, and, at any rate, he thinks it less a crime to cause a momentary laughter than a half hour’s profound slumber.
JAMES VAUGHAN: Not that we should send a man to the gallows because he has indulged a laugh. On the contrary, the man who cannot so indulge is not a man to our liking. There is something wrong in him, physically, mentally, and morally. All truly healthful men, in the spiritual as well as in the natural sense, know how to enjoy their laugh.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): As the verb ‘to laugh’ has a twofold signification among the Latins, so also the Hebrews use it both in a good and evil sense.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): There are two kinds of laughter spoken of in scripture. There is first, the laughter with which the Lord fills our mouth, when, at some trying crisis, He appears in a signal manner for our relief. “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing,” Psalm 126:1,2.
JOHN GILL: There is a time for these things, as it goes ill or well with persons, as to their health, estate, or friends; and as it goes ill or well with kingdoms and states―and as it goes ill or well with the church of Christ.
C. H. SPURGEON: Sometimes, laughter may become the holiest possible expression.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): “Abraham fell on his face, and laughed,” Genesis 17:17. It was a laughter of delight, not of distrust. Now it was that Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day, now he saw it and “was glad,” John 8:56; for as he saw heaven in the promise of Canaan, so he saw Christ in the promise of Isaac.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The name Isaac, which means “laughter,” declared him to be his father’s delight…Later, the promise was renewed in the hearing of Sarah, Genesis 18:10. Then we are told, “Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?” The laughter of Abraham was the laughter of worshipful joy, and that of Sarah was incredulous unbelief.
JOHN GILL: “And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh,” Genesis 21:6. This she said on occasion of the name of her son Isaac, which name her husband had given him by divine direction, and to which she assented. This doubtless brought to her mind her former laughing, when she first heard that she should have a son, which was in a way of diffidence and distrust. But now, God having given her a son, laid a foundation for laughter of another kind―for real solid joy and thankfulness: “so that all that hear will laugh with me;” not laugh at her, and deride her, but congratulate her, and rejoice with her on this occasion.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: When Jehovah makes us to laugh, we may laugh heartily.
A. W. PINK: This shows us that things which are not sinful in themselves, become so when used or enjoyed at the wrong time. Every thing is beautiful in its season…But there is also the laughter of cynicism and unbelief.
A. W. TOZER: Whenever humour takes a holy thing as its object that humour is devilish at once…We should all be aware by this time that one way the devil has of getting rid something is to make jokes about it.
JOHN CALVIN: “Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness,” James 4:9. Laughter [here] is to be taken as signifying the flattering with which the ungodly deceive themselves, while they are infatuated by the sweetness of their sins and forget the judgment of God―as if by jeers and laughter they could escape the arm of God.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): The world may laugh at us, and count our wisdom no better than folly. But such laughter is but for a moment.
A. W. TOZER: Few things are as useful in the Christian life as a gentle sense of humour and few things are as deadly as a sense of humour out of control.
JOHN GILL: When used in a moderate way, and kept within due bounds, it is of service to him, and conduces to the health of his body, and the pleasure of his mind; but when used on every trivial occasion, and at every foolish thing that is said or done, and indulged to excess, it is mere madness, and makes a man look more like a madman and a fool than a wise man.
A. W. PINK: Laughter and tears are nature’s safety valves; they ease nervous tensions, much as an electric storm relieves a heavily-charged atmosphere.
C. H. SPURGEON: Once, during a stormy discussion, a gentleman rose to settle the matter in dispute. Waving his hands majestically over the excited disputants, he began: “Gentlemen, all I want is common sense―” “Exactly!” a man interrupted, “that is precisely what you do want.” The discussion was finished in a burst of laughter.
