Of Blessings
and Warnings [Luke chapter 6, verses 17-26]
by Rev. Paul
J. Bern
There are a
lot of afflicted, hurting and just plain exhausted people in the
world today. People whose lives are filled with sadness, who are
poverty-stricken, as well as the tremendous number of people who
experience loneliness. The world we live in today is one filled with
war, destruction and killing. It is a world full of people who are
viewed by an elite few as being nothing more than commodities at
best, which is financial slavery, and human traffickers at worst –
who will sell another human being for the right price. We live in a
world where over 50,000 children starve to death each day. The world
is a really, really ugly place. A famous musician named Louie
Armstrong, who died back in the 1980's as best as I can recall, once
recorded a fondly-remembered song back in the 1950's that you can
still hear occasionally on the 'easy listening' radio stations. The
lyrics to the first verse were, “I see seas of green, red roses
too, God made it all for me and you, and I think to myself 'what a
wonderful world'”. Lately I have come to the sad conclusion that
the world Louie Armstrong sung about back then no longer exists.
But it is
good to know that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has already
addressed both sides of these issues. To find out what He said, let's
go to Luke's gospel chapter six, starting at verse 17, and I quote,
“He went down with them and stood in a level place. A large
crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from
all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon,
who had come to hear him and to heal their diseases. Those troubled
by evil spirits were cured, and the people tried to touch him,
because power was coming from him and healing them all. Looking at
his disciples he said: 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is
the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be
satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed
are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and
reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that
day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For
that is how their fathers treated the prophets. But woe to you who
are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who
are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of
you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.'”
(Luke 6: 17-26, NIV)
To
get the right context for this event, Jesus had just previously
called the twelve disciples, and this was one of his first public
speeches since then. As you can see from the text, large crowds
gathered whenever and wherever Jesus spoke, so let's consider the
power of that statement. Remember, this was 2,000 years ago. There
was no media as we know it today, no internet, radio, television, or
printing press. Needless to say, since there was no advertising back
then, I find it all the more remarkable that Jesus was able to
attract crowds that were interspersed with people from what must have
been at least 100 miles away. This goes to show you the kind of
awesome drawing power that real truth possesses. “Those troubled
by evil spirits were cured, and the people tried to touch him,
because power was coming from him and healing them all.”
Besides being evidently the greatest orator the world has ever known,
Jesus put action behind his words. He didn't just stand up there and
talk, he healed people. Jesus didn't only cure the physically sick,
he brought Spiritual and mental or psychological healing as well.
There was unimaginable power in Jesus' touch. Being “troubled by
evil spirits” (the word 'evil' in the original Hebrew within this
context is 'unclean spirits') is just another way of describing
mental illnesses such as clinical depression.
But
look at what Jesus said next; “Blessed are you who are poor, for
yours is the kingdom of God.” There are an awful lot of people
in the world today – far too many in my opinion – who are
desperately poor to the point that they are living on less than two
dollars a day. One fourth of all the homeless people in America are
children. Assembly line workers in mainland China – you know, the
multitudes that replaced their American counterparts whose jobs were
outsourced overseas – average an incredibly stingy 26 cents an
hour. So by the world's standards, the poor are all cursed all over
this planet. But by God's standards, they are blessed. Does this mean
God wants us all to be poor? No, not at all! It's just that Jesus
defines wealth differently than we do. True wealth is an abundance of
peace, first and foremost. True wealth means family and friendship.
True wealth means having a livelihood, whether it is having job or a
trade or owning a small business, even a tiny little one-person
enterprise. Never mind how much money you make, or how big your house
is, or what kind of vehicle you drive, your investments or the
clothes you wear. All that is just icing on the cake. If all we ever
ate was the icing off the cake, we'd all turn into diabetics!
“Blessed
are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” Nobody
knows exactly how many people die of starvation each day, but the
numbers are in the tens of thousands – daily! Meanwhile, roughly
one fourth of the food that is grown in the US each year gets thrown
away, from the farm to the restaurant to the dinner table. My dear
readers, we as a civilization must do a whole lot better than this!
Does anybody seriously think that God is happy about this? No, He is
outraged! We throw away food on one side of the world, while
simultaneously starving men, women and children to death over on the
other side! How much longer is humankind going to tolerate this? For
as long as war still exists, that's how long. So the first step to
ending poverty and hunger is to stop all the fighting. “Blessed
are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” Blessed are you in
God's sight who have lost loved ones tragically, who are homeless
because they can't find work, or who are too sick to work. You may be
crying about it now, but you'll laugh about it one day in heaven.
Blessed are you who are depressed to the point of being suicidal,
because you are now in a perfect position to receive Christ, because
when one loses all hope Jesus becomes the only hope and the only
thing we need.
“Blessed
are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and
reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that
day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For
that is how their fathers treated the prophets.” This verse
right here is much of the scriptural basis for Christian martyrdom,
but that's not all. This verse is for all the people who never really
fit in, for the social outcast, for those who have been slandered and
gossiped about to the point of ruining careers and marriages, for
those who always got picked last at school sports (like me), and
especially for those who hate you simply because you are Christian.
Congratulations, God loves those whom the world hates no matter what
the reason! From a Spiritual standpoint, being hated, rejected,
falsely accused and persecuted for religious, economic, racial or
ethnic reasons is like winning a Spiritual lottery as far as God is
concerned. Your reward will be great because the prophets and
followers who came before you were treated the same way by their
ancestors.
“But
woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.”
People who care about nothing but wealth, riches and material goods
care only for themselves. To put it bluntly, they are all going to
hell. If there is anyone reading this who doubts that, feel free to
try and prove me wrong, but don't be surprised if you get way more
than you bargained for. But those who placed others ahead of
themselves in importance in this life will be well rewarded, you can
all be sure about that. “Woe to you who are well fed now, for
you will go hungry.” All the kings, queens, noblemen,
governors, presidents, and particularly the dictators who kept
themselves and their inner circles very well fed while the rest of
their countrymen starved, a day is coming very soon when the tables
will be turned against you. The wealthy western nations, who throw
away 25% of the food they produce while over 2 billion are going
hungry in third world countries, will be the ones judged most
severely. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and
weep.” All the rich elites, you know, the top 1% who control
the top 99% of the wealth throughout the world, are all feeling quite
smug and secure as I write this. They laugh at homeless people, they
attack the poor as if they were playing a contact sport, and they are
proud of how greedy they are. But upon Christ's imminent return,
their joy and contentment will turn into horror when they see their
ultimate fate for the fist time.
“Woe
to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers
treated the false prophets.” Who are the false prophets of
today? They're all over the place, in the sports stadiums, on the
movie screen, on social media, and in the pulpit. They're in our
colleges and universities, on TV, on those porn movies so many are
addicted to, and in our advertising. False prophets are ubiquitous,
just as they always have been. It's just that, since we're living in
the Last Days, they are now more numerous than ever before. Jesus
said in Matthew chapter 24 and verse one, “Watch out that no one
deceives you. For many will come in my name and say, 'I am he', and
will deceive many”. That's exactly the situation we are faced
with today, with Islam being the greatest deception of them all. As
such, and since the Quran condones the murder of Christians, I regard
Islam as the greatest potential threat to the entire western world.
So there we have it – blessings from Jesus, followed by stark
warnings to those whose only pursuits are materialism, power and
wealth. It's time to get our houses in order for Jesus, whether you
belong to church or not. We are all running out of time.
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