Luke 6:24 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 6:24

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Four sayings of blessedness are followed by four sayings of woe and they correspond to each other in the same order. It isn't just a question of an unbeliever missing blessings; it is a question of that. The unbeliever limits his life, turns himself into a beast, lives like flesh and blood alone, as though there were no spiritual dimension, no soul within him, and he is fully fed and fully satisfied simply with the limited material things of this life. Such a man is missing out on the whole real purpose of life, the spiritual realm, spiritual things: of course he is. But it isn't just that the unbeliever is missing nine-tenths of life by being so petty and limited and carnal. No, it's worse than that. It is that, by confining himself to being pleased and filled with the material things of this life and its pleasures, he is delivering the greatest insult to Almighty God that he possibly could, and he is destroying his own spiritual faculties, such as he may have, altogether. The Lord Jesus Christ doesn't just say to those who are rich in terms of this world, and content with material satisfaction; he doesn't simply say, ‘You are not blessed; you are missing out.’ He says, ‘Woe unto you’, and he says it for this reason. He promises you nothing but bitter grief and distress and affliction. Why? Because you quenched your thirst with passing things. You trained yourself, contrary to all the dictates of your conscience and nature, to be satisfied with the carnal. There is nobody who, when they began to emerge into adult life, began to feel a void within. They knew that worldly things were not the beginning and the end of it all, and do not satisfy. They were disappointed and frustrated. But they pushed on anyway, and trained themselves to be pleased and fulfilled with the passing things of this world. Now, a man has to do that against his whole being, and that is the charge. All this is at the expense of character and obedience to God. All this is at the expense of seeking salvation and seeking to serve the Lord. ‘Woe unto you that are rich.’ Woe unto people who have trained themselves to get excited about the carnal, to get excited about materialism, to be fully satisfied by it. Because what they have done is to set aside such conscience as they had, such sense of need as they had, such awareness of God and there being more to life as they had, and to tear it out of their system and threw it to one side. And as far as God is concerned, that was an aggressive act. That was a violation of something that was his. You took that proneness, that awareness, that concern for anything spiritual and you screwed it up and you threw it away and forced yourself to be satisfied with the carnal. Woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. That sense of need, that void within, you have filled it with passing things, empty things, and you will have to answer for that.

Application

What a tragic thing it is that a man who can at some stage in his life hunger for something beyond the material, will so train himself to be satisfied with passing things, that perhaps for years in his life he hungers no more, never feels any need, never feels any desire, is fully satisfied with the carnal, with the transient. What you've done is this: that hunger was given to you of God, that hunger was put there into your life. You have abused it, you've filled it, and that hunger was a warning to you. Didn't you know that? That void within, that unrest, that dissatisfaction, that was a warning to you at a natural level, concerning your spiritual need; it was like a red light flashing. But you ignored the warning and you abused it.

Well, the things of the Spirit and the claims of God may appear to be pushed away from you through the course of this life, but it's all going to come back when you cross the threshold of eternity. Woe unto you that are full, says the Lord Jesus, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now. Why are you laughing now? What have you got to laugh at? What is the source of your pleasure if you are not a Christian? What are you doing? A non-Christian, happy and joyful? – the thing is a nonsense. Let us all look into our own hearts. What has a non-Christian got to be happy and joyful about? He has got no peace in his life. He has got no meaning. He has got no purpose. He is here for ‘three score years and ten’, and then he hasn't the remotest idea what comes next. What is life? It is youth, faculties, getting to a certain point, and then down the other side, losing it all, purposelessness and vanity. All you have got to laugh at is sensual pleasure, fleeting entertainment. Many of the things you laugh at may not be evil in and of themselves; some of them may be quite laudable, but how cheap and fickle they are! What are you doing, friend? Are you just taking little things, lots of little pleasures and little entertainments when you feel low, and trying to crowd your life out with all little sources of joy and happiness, amusement and entertainment, so that the gnawing hunger for spiritual satisfaction will not be felt and will go away? ‘Woe unto you that laugh now,’ says the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘for ye shall mourn and weep.’ He is warning. He’s not just denouncing; he's warning. This is the significance of these verses. And we must deliver this warning to anybody who is trying to pad life out with carnal, sensual things so that the gnawing spiritual hunger will be crowded out. The Lord Jesus Christ warns us, don't do it. You play around like that in life, and you have got to answer through all eternity. That overwhelming sense of the drudgery and meaninglessness of life at times, that sense of shame, that sense of incompleteness; they were God's messengers to your soul, and you have despised them, because you wanted nothing to do with God.

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Luke 6:24 Commentary and Bible Study