Good thoughts, Jack.
Richard Owen Roberts, Puritan Sermons (Vol. 1, p. 631):
We may offend in speaking of the faults of others, if we be not duly affected in speaking of them.—It is too common a thing to speak of others’ sins in mirth, and with some kind of rejoicing, as if we were tickled with it . . . If Christ should step into your company, as he did into the disciples’, while they were walking sadly one with another, and say unto you, while you are speaking of other men’s sins, to make yourselves merry, “What manner of communication have you here?” (Luke 24:17could you approve yourselves to him in this matter? It was a fault among some of the Corinthians, that when they heard of the great sin of the incestuous person, they were “puffed up,” when they should have “rather mourned.” (1 Cor. 5:2.)
Brethren, I do not post a lot anymore, because, well, I'm really busy. I hope that my absence does not make this post seem like a drive-by-"judging," because it would be quite hypocritical (and I have a little Pharisee in my heart who is too often fed with his hypocrisy bread, instead of starved with the exercise of grace). This is also not a blanket condemnation of everything on the website (haven't really looked at it, and don't plan to). I realize- and desire charitably to assume- that these are instances of laughing-to-keep-from-weeping. When I see, however, the same vestiges of sin in my own heart (difference in degree, perhaps, not necessarily in kind?), and being reminded of the state of my own heart (which is downright frightening at times), I remember that sin should never be a laughing matter. I hope this does not come across as "I would never do this, laugh at this, say this," etc. Quite the opposite is true. I believe I have wasted much time in mirth, when, perhaps, that mirth should have been met with a somber consideration of verses like these I reference below. There are many things about which we can express laughter, I'm simply not so sure that sin, especially the sin of those who call the Lord their God, is one of those things, under name of satire or not. I think it rather softens the blows of conscience for our own sins because we are focusing on the more egregious and public sins of others, and that, in a lighthearted manner.
The egregious actings and expressions of these Churches who call themselves Christian are not bringing judgment upon us, they are the expressions of God's judgment already upon us. Let us be like those referenced in Ezekiel below who sigh and cry at all these abominations, and never make light of them again! Please accept this plea from me, a guilty sinner, who has misused much mirth in his own short time on this earth.
Ps. 119.136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.
Ezekiel 9.3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side;4 And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
