A Famine Not of Bread

"Sermon on the Mount" by Carl Bloch Click here to listen to this sermon. “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Our text for today is a continuation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain that we started listening to last week that began with blessings and woes. In the fourth of those blessings, Jesus alerts His disciples to the fact that they will be hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned for following Him (Luke 6:22). A person who experiences such treatment might be tempted to respond in kind. Jesus, however, commands an altogether different kind of behavior, one totally unexpected in this world. He says to His disciples: “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27). This is a call to action, not just emotion, for to love one’s enemies requires an unnatural act of the will. Your enemies are those who hate you and persecute you, which Jesus pictures as an inevitable consequence of being part of His Kin...

  Click here to listen to this sermon. [Jesus] came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed them all. And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received ...