Sermon Tone Analysis

Bible Text: Luke 6:20-26

Luke 6:20–26

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.

Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.

23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

24 But woe unto you that are rich!

for ye have received your consolation.

25 Woe unto you that are full!

for ye shall hunger.

Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

Introduction:

We have come to this sermon on the plain which Jesus gave.

Again, it could well be the same as the sermon on the mount.

Either way the message is the same, highlighting different aspects and details from one account to the other.

Jesus likely preached many of His messages in many different places.

And again, I would like to point out that this part of the message was not a message on ethics.

It was not a how to live and how not to live.

But these were statements of fact, a mirror if you will, that one could look at these blessings and woes and be able to tell if they were those that were among the blessed or if they were of those that had the judgments of woe pronounced upon them.

Are you among the saved?

Or are you among the damned?

Well this message left little way of doubt on either question.

To quickly reiterate, those among the saved would have the qualities about them:

They would be the poor of the world.

Not so much a material poor, although we will see how even the material poor have an advantage over the material wealthy in some aspects, as they have nothing in this life to cling to to distract them from relying fully on God.

But this is talking about the poor in spirit.

The ones that know that they are spiritually, and righteousness impoverished.

They would be the hungry.

Again not so much the physical hunger, but those that knowing they are poor righteously speaking, they do hunger for that righteousness that can bring them into fellowship with the Father.

They would be those that mourn.

They mourn over their own sin.

They mourn over the fact that they have nothing in themselves that they can show to God that they are somehow deserving of His favor and acceptance.

They are those that are the persecuted because of the message that they hold.

That message that says, unless you become poor, unless you humble yourself before God, unless you become hungry, and understand that you are starving spiritually, unless you mourn over your own sin, repent of that sin, you will be among the damned.

And they are persecuted for that message.

Friend, that is essentially the gospel.

But let’s look at the other group Jesus was talking about.

I. Woe To The Rich

A. Woe

As opposed to the blessed that are the highly favored of God.

They have a favorable outcome, the woe is an exclamation of judgment upon God’s enemies.

It is a state of sadness over one’s failure to recognize the true misery of their condition.

They think they are rich when they are in fact truly poor.

They think they are full and yet they are starving to death for the true food of the Word of God

They think they have joy and therefore they laugh when in fact they are in the saddest condition a person could be in.

They think they are in a favorable position with others because their message is one of happiness, wealth, and health, and all things good in this life, but they are like the false prophets of old, they had favor with man, but not with God.

The word woe could be rendered “how dreadful.”

It is the same word used of the angel before the last three angels sounded the trumpet judgments which will come in the tribulation.

Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

Friend, it is a state of great calamity, and yet these that Jesus is speaking of, they can’t even see their dire condition.

B. Woe Unto You That Are Rich

You have received your consolation, Jesus says.

First, let’s look at the material side of this.

Now, again, we must realize Jesus is more so speaking spiritually.

As this is not a hard fast rule that everyone that is material rich is of the damned, it is not all the material rich which have their consolation now.

There are some rich that do not put their trust in money.

In fact they use what they do have to benefit others and for the glory of God.

But Jesus, after that the rich young ruler went away from Him sorrowful because he was not willing to part with his riches to follow Christ, said, How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Friend, can a camel go through the eye of a needle?

No!

So, how hard it is for those that have riches, to let go of those riches and trust in something other than that.

And it’s not just those that have money that can covet money and place their trust in a false hope.

Many poor, even though they have little or no money, they place their faith and trust in money and they greedily try to pursue that rather than to pursue righteousness.

But those that have money tend to feel they have what they need, they feel they are self-sufficient and therefore they tend to think little of their great spiritual need and they are become poorer than poor.

But more so than anything Jesus is talking about those that are rich in spirit in their own mind.

They are the haughty, the self-minded, the self-righteous.

“Surely God will accept me.

I am a good man.”

“God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, this tax collector.

I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”

Friend, was he lying?

He may not have been that extortioner, he may have been just in dealing with other people, he may not have been an adulterer, but friend, he was righteous in his own eyes.

He was rich spiritually in his own self.

He could not see his great need for true righteousness.

Just because I obey this commandment of God or that commandment of God does not make me righteous, because unless I keep them all in complete unadulterated holiness, if I offend in one little point of the law.

I am guilty of them all.

Spiritually speaking, eternally speaking, I am no better than a Hitler.

People say that “No, Hitler will suffer a greater degree of punishment in hell.”

And while that may be true, the true fire of hell is separation from God, and that will be the same for Hitler, and for the one that kept most of the law but was righteous within himself.

He will be eternally separated from God.

C. For You Have Received Your Consolation

Jesus said.

And how foolish a bargain that is.

That certain rich man whose fields brought forth plentiful.

He was already rich and getting richer.

And rather than having a heart for God and the things of God and sharing some of what he had with the needy and poor, not that sharing with the poor offers you a ticket to heaven, but it was what was in his heart, rather than doing those things he said within himself, my barns are already full, so I will tear down those barns and build bigger.

And then I will take ease, I will vacation and travel, I will buy what I want when I want it, I will do all that my heart desires.

And friend, even if the Lord did not come to him and say “This night...” even if he would have lived on in ease for another 20, 30, 50 years, it would have still been a bad bargain and he would still have been a fool.

Because at some point, the Lord still would have come to him and said, Thou fool, this night thy soul is required of thee:

Now listen to this part, He’s not done.

Then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided.

Oh, but Joe, at least he left money to his heirs, his sons, his daughters, his wife, they don’t have to struggle anymore.

And so just like the Pharisees that Jesus criticized, he would make them twice the child of hell as he was.

Where is there trust going to be?

Where is there faith going to be?

It will be in those temporal riches, and yet again, another bad bargain, your best life now, in exchange for what is eternal.

You have received your consolation, Jesus said.