God Laughs at His Enemies

 

In one of his features, international journalist Dan Wooding interviewed Joshua Saune, the leader of 200 Quechua churches scattered amongst the war-ravaged Andes Mountains. Joshua recalled the time when he was going to lead an army of his people to avenge the killings his two brothers, his grandfather and nine other relatives by the “Shining Path” guerrillas.

He said “in 1992 I heard that my two dear brothers, Romulo and Ruben Saune, who were great leaders  had been murdered. They had traveled to the mountains of Ayacucho to take the gospel and to fellowship with the people there. The Quechua Christians were in despair, living in caves with no food, hiding from the guerrillas. My brothers knew that they had to do something for them.

They decided to go and fellowship with those Christians, to show them that our great God really cared for them. When they were coming back home, an ambush was set up on the road.  My brothers and three of my nephews were shot by guerrillas. They died two yards away from my parents who had accompanied them.

I got the call from Donna, the wife of Romulo. She was the translator of the Bible in my language. She was in Atlanta at the time. She told me, 'Joshua, your brothers were killed yesterday, can you go with me to Peru.' I did go back but with one desire, to avenge my brothers, to kill people. I was really angry at first with God.

I asked Him, ' God why, did you allow this to happen? You say you are great, but what were your angels doing when your people were slaughtered? Perhaps they were cowards and they were hiding behind the mountains. If you are not going to fight for my people, I'm going to do it. For many years they have cried and shed their blood and now I am going to avenge those actions.’

 He paused briefly and then went on, "But our God is so great, he changed my heart. I was looking at the bodies of my brothers when God changed my heart. For the first time in my life I understood that it wasn't the terrorists who were the enemy of my people, it was Satan. I knew that I must fight against Satan. According to the government statistics, 800 pastors and close to 30,000 Christians have been killed.

Our greatest problem is caring for 15,000 orphans. Three years ago, we started a school and named it after my brother, Romulo Saune. We did that so that, when the children ask why we chose this name, I can tell them the great story of this young Quechua man who grew up as a servant of the Lord.  The children can relate to his story and also grow up to be great servants of the Lord.”

In Psalm 37:12-15 David says “The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will pierce their own hearts and their bows will be broken”.

Earlier in this psalm, David contrasted the fate of the righteous with the fate of the wicked. Now he considers the inevitable conflict between the righteous and the wicked. The wicked show by their gestures what they would do if they could. Their gnashing of teeth shows the depth of their hatred. They carry out their plots against God’s people.

In Psalm 2:1-4 we read “Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves...against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “let us break their bonds in  pieces and cast away their cords from us :, He who sits in the heavens shall laugh , the Lord shall hold them in derision (Ps. 2:1-4).

The psalmist seems mystified that the nations can rage against God. Their opposition against God is nothing but a vain thing.  God looks at the way man plots against him and he laughs. God laughs because “all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will ...among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, “what have you done?”(Dan 4:34).

God does not hide behind a vast celestial rampart, counting the enemy and calculating whether or not he has sufficient force to counter this new challenge to his kingdom. He does not pace back and forth in his throne room wondering what he should do next. God does not even rise from where he is sitting. He sits in perfect peace and simply laughs at these great imbeciles.

In Genesis 15:1-6 we read that God told Abram, “do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”But Abram said, “Lord God what will you give me…you have given me no offspring”. The Lord said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to number them. So shall your descendants be". Abraham believed in the Lord but he did not live long enough to see the fulfillment of this promise.

In Genesis 37 we read that Jacob’s favourite son, seventeen years old Joseph, had two dreams and he told his brothers about them. In the first dream he saw “your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my  sheaf " His brothers said to him , shall you indeed reign over us ? (vv. 9-11). Later Jacob sent Joseph to his brothers who were feeding the flock in Shechem. sheaf.”

When his brothers saw him afar off, they said to one another, “look, this dreamer is coming! Let us kill him and we shall see what will become of his  dreams (vv. 12, 18-20) . Remember that the dreams had come from God.  Oh how God must have laughed at them. a company of Ishmaelites that God had sent to pick Joseph and take him to Egypt was about to arrive (vv. 25-28).

Years later Jacob was expected to join Joseph in Egypt. But how could he leave the Promised Land and go to a strange land. God spoke to him and said, “do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt (Gen. 46:2-4). Seventy persons of Jacob's household went with him to Egypt and settled in the best land-Goshen (Gen 46:27; 47:6).

In Genesis 50:18-20 we read that Joseph brothers came and fell down before him and said, ‘Behold, we are your servants.’ But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive. Joseph’s dreams came to pass.

In Exodus 1:7-12 we are that the children of Israel multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty. A new king who did not know Joseph came to power. He said “let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply”. Taskmasters were set over the Israelites to afflict them. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. The Egyptians were in dread of them.

The king  instructed the Hebrew midwives to kill every male child at birth. But the midwives feared God and did not obey the king.  The king found out and asked the midwives, “why have you saved the male children? The Israelites continued to multiply and they grew very mighty. Pharaoh commanded all his people " every son who is born you shall cast into the river (Exodus 1).

It’s during that time that Moses was born. His mother hid him at the banks of a river. His sister would stand afar off, watching over him. One day the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bath at the river and she saw him. The baby wept, so she had compassion on him. Moses sister approached her and asked , “shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?”

Without knowing it, the royal family gave baby Moses to his own mother. She was paid to raise her own child. Seated on his throne, God must have really laughed. The child who would grow up to be the most dreadful Israelite to the Egyptians, was nurtured under the protection of Pharaoh’s own daughter. He was also given the best education (Acts 7:22). He later wrote the first five books of the Bible- Genesis to Deuteronomy.

Many years later Moses delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children (Exodus 12:37). This was a strong group well able to fight the battles they would encounter on their way back to the Promised Land. Today the descendants of the once childless Abrahams are as many as the stars in the heavens.

When Jesus died, his enemies celebrated thinking they had destroyed his movement forever.  But  the small group he left on earth soon grew and will reach the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8) and the earth will be  filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14)

The murderers of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, gnashed at him with their teeth. Watching Stephen die was a young man called Saul of Tarsus. He heard Stephen’s final words and saw him face death without fear (Acts 7:54-60). This changed Saul forever. Paul became the greatest evangelist who ever lived. He was not afraid of death, if anything he longed for it (Phil. 1:21).

God’s enemies had him thrown into prison to silence him. But his imprisonment only made the spread of the gospel better. The others believers got more bold in spreading the gospel (Phil 1:12-14). His greatest accomplishment in prison was the writing of the four prison letters, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Generations have been taught and encouraged by them.

God is still seated on the throne and throughout the years he has continued to laugh at his enemies. He knows that the seeming victories of the wicked will only last for a season and then their schemes will come back on their own heads.  They shall fall into the pits they have dug and the stone they have rolled will roll back on them (Prov. 26:27).

This derisive laughter of God is the comfort of all those who love righteousness. At the end of the age; the angels will take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 13:49-50). God will have the last laugh.