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James 4:9
9 Be afflicted [talaiporeo], and [kai] mourn [pentheo], and [kai] weep [klaio]: let your [humon] laughter [gelos] be turned [metastrepho] to [eis] mourning [penthos], and [kai] your joy [chara] to [eis] heaviness [katepheia]. KJV-Interlinear
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom. NASB
Misery, mourning, your laughter turning into an even deeper mourning and gloom state. These are what you can expect if you ignore all that has been taught in these last several verses.
So, James says, go ahead and ignore all that has been taught. Go ahead and scoff at these principles of truth. Go ahead and follow your heart, your natural instincts, desires, beliefs, opinions, and see what they get you.
Lightning does not strike instantly when you stray away from common sense or truth. In fact God lets you go right ahead in doing or thinking the way you want.
He lets you crusade. He lets you gossip and malign and destroy someone else. He lets you press your political or religious or natural beliefs. He lets you make your beliefs more important to you, at someone else's expense.
God lets you ignore His mandates, His principles, His commands. God lets you mock and strut, and ridicule.
And …
God allows the repercussions of your thoughts and actions fall all over you.
Your laughter and smirkness will be short lived. Yes, you may smirk for years, but time catches up with us all, and one day, God will call you home and then your worst realizations will come to you.
Your few short years, perhaps decades in this life will all be behind you and your future, billions and billions and trillions of years of eternity and more, lay before you. And all those eternal blessings that you could have had, will never be.
You traded a gold mine of eternal blessings for a few short stubborn laughs for this life. You traded a kings wealth for the nothing pile of worldly opinion. You conformed to the world, and traded away your destiny.
So, James mocks you a bit. Go ahead and cry and worry and lose your security. Go ahead and be miserable and mourn your losses, and be gloomy from the very core of your soul. Why? Because that is exactly what you are doing when you reject the scriptures and pursue your own beliefs in life.
No, you won't feel these things right away, but sooner or later, you will. And, when that day comes, you had better hope (and pray), that God has left a little time for you to change your ways, and recover.
But alas, most won't change. Even people who happen upon this study, one day, will most likely roll their eyes and move on to a 'better' study. One which is more convenient to their choosing.
