Somehow I got started talking about holy laughter on one of my previous threads. As you may know, holy laughter was one of the phenomena which characterized the Toronto revival.

Many churches in the UK embraced the Toronto blessing. In fact there is a Calvinistic Charismatic association of churches known as New Frontiers that is based in Brighton, England that embraced the blessing.

Adrian Warnock, a popular "reformed" charismatic blogger is part of New Frontiers. A couple of years ago, he posted a blog entry concerning the Toronto blessing and Charles Haddon Spurgeon of all people.

The following quote is taken from Spurgeon, which in turn was taken from the pyromaniacs blog via Adrian Warnock's blog.

"My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

"I have often read in Scripture of the holy laughter of Abraham, when he fell upon his face and laughed; but I do not know that I ever experienced that laughter till a few evenings ago, when this text came home to me with such sacred power as literally to cause me to laugh . . ."

You can read the rest of Adrian's article here:

adrianwarnock.com: Sufficient and Efficient Grace - Spurgeon, Tongues, and the Toronto Blessing

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Jared Hanley
AG
LaFollette, TN

Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Psalm 127:1 ESV

Admin's Note:

This can be discussed here, but it will not be advocated or argued for in the affirmative, due to its obvious contra Confessional nature.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
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It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

I don't mean to be rude by asking this. I was simply wondering. Was Spurgeon contra confessional by mentioning his experience with what he calls "holy laughter". (Spurgeon's words, not mine.) Is this experience that Spurgeon claims to have had contra confessional?

There were no accusations of rudeness, Brother. I just wanted to nip it in the bud just in case or before it became an issue.

I would like to see more of the context of Spurgeon's quote but from what is quoted, it is apparent that Spurgeon is moved to laughter by meditation upon Scripture and the illumination of it's truth. This is not what the "holy laughter" of the charismatic movement is, which is completely driven my mindless emotion and manipulated euphoria, not meditation. I gladly welcome Spurgeon's version, but not the charismatic version.

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Patrick
MDiv, RTS Jackson
Pastor, Grace Presbyterian Church (OPC), Lisbon, NY

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.
"Let us not please ourselves that we have deep understandings, but let us shew our understandings by our practice." Richard Sibbes

Here is the quotation in context. Clearly Mr. Spurgeon references it as something derogatory to himself, not spiritually edifying.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

I laughed when I got the joke of Psalm 2. There is a time when God fills our mouths with laughter, Psalm 126:2 . But there is a massive difference between sudden joy in the goodness or greatness of God (which I think is what produces laughter: it's surprised joy), and what I have seen of the "holy laughter" phenomenon, which ought more accurately to be called "infernal laughter". It happened one time to John and Charles Wesley, that first Charles and then John began to laugh uncontrollably while speaking of Scriptural things out on a walk: they concluded that it was a diabolical attack upon them, not a blessing to be embraced.

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Ruben
Moderator
F.P.C.I.
Indiana

Vanities and disguises have covered us, and thereby we are naked; licenciousness hath inflam'd us, and thereby we are frozen; voluptuousness hath fed us, and thereby we are sterved, the fancies and traditions of men have taught and instructed us, and thereby we are ignorant.
John Donne

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In no way can the shenanigans that went on in Toronto (or Brownsville, or other places) popularly known as "holy laughter" be a) called a "blessing", b) referred to as "holy" or c) considered anything but demonic in nature. One cannot equate Spurgeon's laughter, or that of Abraham's - look at the context of his quotation, and the way in which the laughter itself arose, and you'll see that this isn't some kind of Spirit-filled giggling that the shysters of the "Toronto blessing" were selling people.

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Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://inprincipiodeus.solideogloria.com
http://puritanwisdom.blogspot.com

"As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low."
John Flavel in Keeping the Heart



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I will try to be careful about how I reply since I have been told not to argue in favor of the phenomenon known as the Toronto blessing.

Perhaps, some Charismatics do experience a deeper sort of laughter that arises from the study of scripture.

A few people have already said that they don't have a problem with Spurgeon's experience since it is brought on because of something that is read in the scripture. This has happened to me a couple of times. Not as a normal thing, but it has happened two or three times, maybe.

For instance, I was reading the following scripture and had this experience:

Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me."
Genesis 21:1-6

"and it looked almost as if it were meant to ridicule my unbelief!"

What do you think Spurgeon meant by that?

Moderator Voice on:

It is not entirely clear that you are trying to be careful with this post. Could you please clarify that you are not positing a supernatural "laughter" experience? Do you mean this, or do you merely mean that there are funny things in Scripture?

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Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
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He meant that he began to laugh at himself for his inability to understand the substantive point of the text. He was previously trying to delve, pry and prove the text for some hidden meaning, and the Holy Spirit (through illumination) caued him to understand the text's import on himself.

This obviously had nothing to do with "holy laughter" nor was it a "spiritual experience" in and of itself. The citing blog posts are guilty of being disingenuous, that is, lying, to promote their false theology.

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Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA (Katy, TX)
Christ Church Blog

"The heart is the main thing in true religion...It is the hinge and turning-point in the condition of man's soul. If the heart is alive to God and quickened by the Spirit, the man is a living Christian. If the heart is dead and has not the Spirit, the man is dead before God." (J.C. Ryle)

I'm not entirely sure that I understand the question, but I will try to answer anyway.

I would understand my experience to be a partial fulfillment of the text. (Of course not the only fulfillment because that would be absurd.)

What I mean is this:

When Sarah says:

"God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me."

I felt like what I was experiencing was exactly what was foretold in the afore-mentioned passage. It did not say that only those who were contemporaneously connected to Sarah would laugh, but simply anyone who hears about it.

Perhaps my understanding of the passage is incorrect. I would be perfectly willing for someone to disprove my experience. After all, experience is subjective.

Jared, experiences aren't disproven. They're either validated or invalidated by the Truth of Scripture. Given the text, the context, etc., I don't think this could be compared to the utter foolishness that is today called "holy laughter."

Whether one has an experience or not is completely irrelevant. Experience doesn't = Truth/Right. We must allow Scripture to be a means of reforming us (via the work of the Spirit in sanctification)? experiences and all.

You don't generally expect a woman who is past age to have children. Sarah laughed because it was "funny" and unexpected. The passage isn't foreshadowing or foretelling that there will be a future "holy laughing" experience in the church. It seems to be a way of her admitting (excusing?) her own unbelief when she laughed at the announcement of her and her 100-year-old husband having a son. You can almost sympathize with her chuckle at the whole situation. So you could say that, whereas Sarah laughed in unbelief, Mary, when announced that she would have a child, simply believed. The text is about the fulfillment of God's promise of providing a seed and, along with that, one woman's struggle to believe it -- and that struggle involved laughing at God's promise and then, finally, laughing when it is actually fulfilled. This puts her laughter into context.

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Casey, Chicagoland, OPC

Sorry I got caught up in the spirit.

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Stephen Welch
PCA Teaching Elder
Nova Scotia :cheers:

This guy has obviously been laughing so much he has not taken the time to read Spurgeon, because he did not advocate this revivalist nonsense of the Toronto movement.

Right on, brother.

It's sad when people misquote others to support their views. That quote by Spurgeon in context is definetly NOT talking about a "holy laughter" for there was nothing really "holy" about Sarah laughing, and God even rebuked her for it, which she denied. It was a sign of unbelief, for it was in a sense saying that the thing God promised was to hard for Him to accomplish because she was past the age of child-bearing. But this giving of Spurgeon's words another meaning is prohibited by the 9th commadment too, bearing false testimony.

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Benjamin
Worship leader
CESA
South Africa, Cape Town
"What is the chief end of man?
Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."

Welcome to the internet age. People often go to the internet to research and get information that is often taken out of context or not always carefully researched. Gary North on Vision Forum's website this week had a great commentary on how not to use the internet for searching for information, especially quotes taken out of context.