The Great Reversal: The Woes of a Counterfeit Kingdom Text: Luke 6:24-26
Introduction: The Other Side of the Coin
We have just come down from the mountain with Jesus. We have heard the blessings, the Beatitudes, which turn the world's value system entirely on its head. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated. This is the constitution of the Kingdom of God, and it is glorious, paradoxical, and utterly contrary to the spirit of the age. But we must understand that this coin has two sides. For every blessing pronounced on the citizens of Heaven, there is a corresponding woe pronounced on the citizens of this world. The woes are not an afterthought; they are the necessary shadow cast by the brilliant light of the blessings. They are the other side of the ledger.
Jesus is not simply offering two alternative paths to happiness, as though one could pick the blessings like items from a buffet and leave the woes. No, He is describing two mutually exclusive kingdoms, two antithetical realities. You are either in the one or the other. You cannot have a foot in both. The woes are a declaration of war against the counterfeit kingdom, the kingdom of self, the kingdom of mammon, the kingdom of popular opinion. They are a series of divine torpedoes aimed directly at the hull of the world's pride.
In our therapeutic age, we are comfortable with the blessings, provided we can domesticate them. We like the idea of being comforted and filled and rewarded. But we recoil from the woes. They seem harsh, uncharitable, judgmental. But to reject the woes is to misunderstand the blessings. The blessings are precious precisely because they rescue us from the reality of the woes. The woes describe the default state of fallen man, the trajectory of a world that has rejected its King. They are not threats; they are diagnoses. They are the loving, terrifying warnings of a physician telling a patient that the course he is on leads to certain death. To ignore them is not a sign of sophistication, but of terminal folly.
The Text
But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full.
Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and cry.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers were doing the same things to the false prophets.
(Luke 6:24-26 LSB)
The Full Upfront Payment (v. 24)
The first woe is a direct inversion of the first beatitude. The poor in spirit are blessed, for theirs is the kingdom. But here we see the other side.
"But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full." (Luke 6:24)
We must be careful here. This is not a flat condemnation of material wealth. The Bible is full of examples of godly men who were rich, Abraham, Job, and David among them. Wealth, rightly understood, is a tool from God, a blessing to be stewarded for the advance of the kingdom. The sin is not in having wealth, but in being had by it. The woe is pronounced on those "who are rich" in a way that defines them. Their identity, their security, their comfort is located in their portfolio. They trust in their riches.
And notice the terrible logic of their judgment: "for you are receiving your comfort in full." The word for "receiving in full" is a commercial term, apecho. It means to give a receipt for a payment in full. The deal is done. You have chosen your comfort, and you are getting all of it right now. You have cashed the check. There is nothing more to come. This is all you get. You have traded an eternal weight of glory for a few decades of padded, climate-controlled, ephemeral comfort. You have chosen the appetizer as your entire meal, and the tragedy is that you are satisfied with it.
This is the precise diagnosis Jesus gives in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man, in torment, is told, "Child, remember that during your life you received your good things" (Luke 16:25). He got his payment in full. He chose his consolation on the front end. This woe is a warning against all forms of materialism that find their heaven on earth. If your treasure is here, if your comfort is here, if your security is here, then you have settled your accounts. And when this life is over, you will be eternally bankrupt.
The Emptiness of Fullness (v. 25)
The second woe continues this theme of eschatological reversal, addressing those who are satisfied with the world's provisions and entertained by its follies.
"Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and cry." (Luke 6:25 LSB)
Again, the woe is not against food or laughter in themselves. God provides food to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. And godly laughter, the joy of the Lord, is our strength. It is a weapon of war. But Jesus is speaking of a particular kind of fullness and a particular kind of laughter. He is speaking of the self-satisfied fullness of the man who has no appetite for the Bread of Life because his belly is full of the world's bread. He feels no spiritual hunger because his physical appetites have been completely satiated. His soul is starving, but he cannot feel it because his stomach is full.
The promise is a terrifying reversal: "you shall be hungry." This is the hunger of the man in Hades who begged for a single drop of water. It is the eternal, gnawing, unsatisfied craving of a soul that rejected the only food that could ever fill it. Those who feast at the world's table now will starve for eternity.
And "woe to you who laugh now." This is not the deep, chest-rumbling laughter of faith that looks at the cultural madness of our day and sees the Marx Brothers, not Karl Marx. This is not the laughter that scoffs at the enemies of God because He who sits in the heavens laughs. No, this is the shallow, frivolous, distracting laughter of the fool. It is the laughter of the sitcom, the late-night host, the court jester. It is the laughter that serves as an anesthetic to dull the pain of a meaningless existence. It is the cackle of those who are amusing themselves on the broad road to destruction. For them, the party will end. The laughter will be silenced, and it will be replaced by an eternity of mourning and weeping, the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" that describes the outer darkness.
The Curse of Popularity (v. 26)
The final woe is perhaps the most pointed for us, particularly for those in ministry. It strikes at the heart of our desire for affirmation and respectability.
"Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers were doing the same things to the false prophets." (Luke 6:26 LSB)
In a world that is in rebellion against God, universal acclaim is not a badge of honor; it is a mark of compromise. If the world loves you, it is because you are one of its own. If the world applauds your message, it is because your message is no threat to the world's system. Jesus is setting up a clear historical precedent. How did our fathers, the rebellious Israelites, treat the true prophets? They stoned them, sawed them in two, and killed them with the sword. And how did they treat the false prophets? They spoke well of them. They loved them.
Why? Because the false prophets told them what they wanted to hear. They prophesied "peace, peace," when there was no peace. They tailored their message to the itching ears of the audience. They were smooth, culturally sensitive, and affirming. And the people loved them for it. They gave them book deals and conference slots and endowed chairs at the seminary.
Jesus says that if you find yourself in that position, with the world patting you on the back and telling you how relevant and thoughtful you are, you should be terrified. It is a flashing red warning light on the dashboard of your soul. It means you are walking in the footsteps of the false prophets. The faithful gospel will always be an offense to the world. It confronts, it challenges, it calls for repentance. It is a stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness to the Gentile. If your gospel is neither a stumbling block nor foolishness to anyone, it is because it is not the gospel. The praise of the world is a woe, a curse, because it is evidence of profound spiritual treason.
Conclusion: Fleeing the Woes
These four woes are not separate problems. They are four symptoms of one terminal disease: living for this life. To be rich in comfort now, to be full and laughing now, to be praised by all now, this is to have chosen your kingdom. And it is a kingdom of shadows, a kingdom of ghosts, a kingdom that is passing away.
The only escape from these woes is to run headlong into the blessings. The only way to avoid the woe of being rich is to become poor in spirit. The only way to avoid the woe of being full is to hunger and thirst for righteousness. The only way to avoid the woe of laughing now is to be willing to mourn over your sin. The only way to avoid the woe of being well-spoken of is to rejoice when you are hated and excluded for the sake of the Son of Man.
You cannot have the comfort of the world and the comfort of Christ. You cannot be filled at the world's table and at the Lord's Table. You cannot desire the laughter of fools and the joy of the saints. You cannot court the applause of men and the "well done, good and faithful servant" of God.
These woes are a severe mercy. They are a call to repentance. They are a call to examine what you truly value, where you truly find your comfort, your satisfaction, and your affirmation. Flee from the counterfeit comforts of this age. Flee to Christ. In Him, poverty is riches. In Him, hunger is a feast. In Him, sorrow is the seed of joy. And in Him, the world's hatred is the Father's highest commendation.