THE REALM OF HOLY LAUGHTER
THE REALM OF HOLY LAUGHTER
Sunday, august 20, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Written out in a dream I had a couple of months ago: “Carolyn, Laughter is a realm of the Spirit.”
Sarah said, God has made me to laugh, so that all that hears will laugh with me. (Gen. 21:6)
I am persuaded the Holy Spirit Laughter is “God laughing.” The Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit have made their abode in us. The seed of Isaac (God laughs), Jesus Christ abides in each born-again, Holy Spirit filled Christian.
I am going to attempt to unwrap this in light of my personal experiences with the Holy Laughter, and my deep persuasion of what was the true source of Sarah’s laughter when she was told she would have a son in her old age.
I have never shared the deep emotional experience of the Spirit from which the Holy Laughter spontaneously erupted from my innermost being. I would have no reason to share this except to establish “Laughter is a realm of the Spirit.”
I have personally experienced Holy Spirit laughter since about 1983. I had silently been carrying a deep emotional pain and promise for many years. I had prayed and pressed in to the LORD with all my heart. In the natural, it appeared the situation was getting worse. In 1983, there was an eruption or manifestation bringing to the surface all my hidden pain that I had tried to “cover” by gluing my life together.
The pastor of the church where I was attending visited our home and lanced the scab of the deep pain. When he began to speak, laughter began to roll forth from deep within my Spirit. At the time, I thought he was prophetic enough to know the pain I was carrying and what had come to light. He did not. He thought I was emotionally deranged. Therefore, I became the target of the blame and judgment of the church.
I knew the LORD and also knew I was seeking HIM with all my being. The next four years is a story you have heard often of my brokenness before the LORD as well as physically and emotionally. Today that is not the purpose of this message.
Again around 1987, I had recovered enough that I began attending a prophetic church. Through the prophets, the LORD was healing me and vindicating me. One night I received a deep touch of the SPIRIT. For the second time in my life, that Holy Ghost laughter bubbled forth from the inner-most part of my being. It was a release of great joy that my God had delivered me from the deep pain of my soul; and delivering me into His joy and promise. The laughter came forth from the “deep.” I was healed, being healed and delivered from 20-years of abuse which I had come into agreement with in the name of being a “good Christian.” This abuse had permeated to every area of my life and every relationship. I thought to be a “good Christian” that translated into being a doormat. Today this is not the story of my life. The purpose of this message is to reveal my relationship with the realm of Holy Spirit Laughter.
That prophetic church had never experienced the Holy Ghost Laughter and accused me of faking it. I didn’t know enough to fake it. The laughter was a spontaneous spiritual experience which bubbled up from great release of joy within me. Like Sarah, I knew I could say, God had made me to laugh (Gen. 21:6).
This laughter experience happened a few more times in the next few years. Then entered Rodney Howard Browne with the Holy Laughter Revival. Around 1990, I attended a meeting in New Orleans and saw people falling in the Spirit and laughing in great, joy, spiritual warfare, healings, release of gifts and other Spiritual manifestation. I was cautious because I knew the deep release, healing and strength the Holy Spirit had brought to me through His HOLY laughter. I had to be sure the laughter wasn’t just mass hysteria taking lightly that which is HOLY.
Then the laughter hit me in the meeting, and I felt the same deep release of pain which accelerated my soul and Spirit into great joy when I knew God had made me to laugh.
In the past 30 years, I have been serving the LORD as a pastor. There have been many battles of which the residue could have left bitterness, pain and scars. I always know when the victory has been won in the SPIRIT. Again that spontaneous laughter which purges my inner-most being catapults my soul into joy unspeakable. After the visitation of laughter, I am free and released into the realm of knowing God made me to laugh.
In view of my story, I want to take a fresh look at Sarah’s laughter.
Genesis 18 is the story of the LORD and two angels visiting Abraham to announce the birth of Isaac. Sarah overheard, I will return to you according to the time of life, and lo, Sarah, your wife shall have a son. Sarah laughed within herself that the promise of a son would come forth in her old age. She had been carrying the promise of an heir for Abraham for many years (perhaps 25 years). She is now 90-years of age. We don’t know how old Sarah was when Abraham received the promise.
Have you ever carried a promise of God within yourself for years and years? Waiting for this promised son would have been a deep pain within Sarah. In the natural it appeared her promise would never be.
Could the deep pain within Sarah have been released with a visitation of Holy Spirit laughter which set her free to receive in Faith the promised Seed of Christ? She is in the Hebrews Hall of Faith that, she judged Him faithful who had promised.
Hebrews 11:11: Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore, came forth from one man, and him as good as dead, as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
After this visitation of the LORD, Sara was restored. She was so beautiful that of all the young damsels in the land, Abimelech wanted Sarah. She had become a beautiful woman again. She had experienced this change in one year because she believed and received the Word of the Lord. TRUTH (the Word) in the inward parts is that which revitalizes the body and brings healing within.
(Abimelech was a trap of Satan to steal the promised Seed.)
The overriding theme of the first nine verses in Genesis 21 is that of laughter. The name Isaac means “God laughs.”
John 14: 23-24: Jesus answered, if a man loves Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with Him...
I am persuaded the Holy Spirit Laughter is “God laughing.” The Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit have made their abode in us.
Genesis 21: 1-6: The LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as He had spoken. Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son that was born to him, who Sarah bare to him, Isaac. Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him. Sarah said, God has made me to laugh, so that all that hears will laugh with me.
The Hebrew word for “laugh” is tsakhak, the exact same word used in Gen. 18:12 when Sarah laughed within herself that she would have a child at her age. The writers of the Old Testament interpreted this to be a mockery. It is my persuasion, it was Holy Laughter which rises in us in when a promise of God for which we have stood and believed breaks forth by the Spirit into the realm of the natural.
My friends I believe this was a visitation on earth of God revealing Himself in the realm of laughter. God’s laugh brings healing, restoration, strength, and delivers us from the realm of pain into the realm of His promise.
Romans 9:7: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but, in Isaac shall your seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, at this time I will come and Sara shall have a son. Not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived one, even by our father Isaac.
Gal. 4:28: Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Isaac, the son was the heir of all things. He was born into wealth. Everything was given to him. Heb. 11:18: Of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall your seed be called.
The Isaac nature is the new nature. The Hebrew word for Isaac is “yitschaq” which means laughter. “He will laugh, to laugh outright; to sport, play; He (God) laughs, joy, singing, or leaping.”
Jehovah identifies Himself 13 times in the Holy writ as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jesus confirms this. (Mt. 22:32).
The intent of this message is not to validate or defend Holy Spirit Laughter because in my mind, there is no need to defend this blessing. My intent is to apprehend by faith in God’s Word the absolute that Holy Laughter is a realm of the Spirit.
You might ask why since we receive the blessing by faith. I must press in to receive the fullness of this blessing. Otherwise, why would the LORD speak to me that Holy Laughter is a realm of the Spirit.
Holy Ghost laughter heals, delivers, possesses the gate of enemies, delivers the promise of God, and seals us as children of promise. God has made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
Gen. 17:19: You shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
Psa. 126:1: When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing; then said they among the heathen, the LORD has done great things for them. The LORD has done great things for us; and we are glad…They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goes forth and weeps, bears precious seed, and shall come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (Sheaves – that which is bound)
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V.