Luke 6:20-26
The Beatitudes
20 Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:
"Blessed are you poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.
22 Blessed are you when men hate you,
And when they exclude you,
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,
For the Son of Man's sake.
23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!
For indeed your reward is great in heaven,
For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.
Jesus Pronounces Woes
24 "But woe to you who are rich,
For you have received your consolation.
25 Woe to you who are full,
For you shall hunger.
Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
For so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Here Jesus pronounced blessings and woes. The beautiful life follows God’s word from the heart and not in rote compliance that compromises or even misapplies the commands and exhortations given to us that we might live lives pleasing to Him in the beauty of holiness. When we realize we have nothing apart from our Lord and His word, then our seeming poverty is true riches in the kingdom of heaven. Blessings of beauty also entail hunger satiated by hearing from the Lord as we sit at His feet (Luke 10:39, 42) and listen attentively to learn how to live acceptably to our Father above. Do we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness and holiness that we may be pleasing to our Maker? Fountains of blessings flow from those who live in the direction of our Lord and Savior in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit as we are attentive to our loving Father in heaven above. If we cry with sadness over our sin and those running headlong into destruction, we can be assured that God will wipe away every tear in eternity (Revelation 21:4) and provide solace and joy forevermore in His very presence. This is our hope of the blessings of temporary sorrow now which will be taken away then. We shall find laughter replacing sadness as we sit apart from sin and sorrow in this new creation. When others hate us for our love of God and living according to His Word, when they treat us as outcasts and defame us because we identify with Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17), then we can rest assured in the blessings of being God-pleasers and can rejoice exceedingly as did the prophets who have gone before us in His name to glorify and honor Him. However, if we think that we do not need the Lord or His word and work, if we dishonor and dismiss Him by rejecting these instructions, then we only experience woe and sorrow that never abates or goes away. Such woe is deep or inconsolable grief or misery that is quite the opposite of the joy of blessings found in following the Lord. If we rely on our own ability to have riches and feed our appetites with disregard to His instructions because they involve suffering for His name, then our laughter will morph into the woe of deep sorrow and everlasting shame (Daniel 12:2). The last woe pronounced by Jesus was for those who reject Him out of fear of persecution and only want others to like and speak highly of them as they compromise God their Maker. It is as the false prophets who spoke what others wanted to hear (Jeremiah 6:13, Lamentations 2:14, Micah 2:11, Matthew 7:15) instead of what they needed to hear (2 Timothy 4:3) from the LORD. May we be wise and pursue the knowledge of the Lord by listening to trust and obey at all costs in all times that we may see good in being blessed and avoid the woes of judgment coming on all flesh. Rejoice in suffering and anticipate the blessing of the end of sin’s presence set before us.
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