Although the enthusiastic reception of their Master must have cheered the Apostles and set them forward in good heart, yet they were not to think that they were called to share in a triumph that was already won. They were not to be over-elated by this passing favour of men. The danger was, lest they should be too sanguine and be carried away by the fascination of popular goodwill. Well might they be lifted up. Their Master had just entrusted them with superhuman powers, and multitudes had come from miles around and had waited for them all night at the foot of the hills. So, in the midst of the flush of success, our Lord tells them that the criterion of their being true soldiers of God is their winning, not the world’s praise but its hate. There is in the world an enmity to God as God. There are many who will readily enough acknowledge a Deity so long as He is not real and actual and is not brought too near; they find in the abstract idea a serviceable support for their social institutions; but from the notion of a living God close by them they shrink in dismay, and along with their terror goes hate. Parallel with these beatitudes run the denunciations of woe. “But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you, ye that are full now! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you, ye that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for in the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets.”(175) These denunciations are not found in the Sermon on the Mount. That discourse was addressed to people mostly of the same class and in the same posture of mind. When our Lord first spoke to the crowds on the hillside people had not begun to take sides; but, at the period of the history now before us, they had already clustered into parties; some had declared for the word and some against it, while many remained indifferent or in doubt, and to these several parties our Lord speaks in turn. I think that when our Lord began to utter “Woe,” he turned to the men of station and substance in whom curiosity was mixed with considerations of prudence. They are not denounced for being rich any more than the poor are blessed for being poor; but their calamity is this, that in riches they find enough consolation to prevent their striving heartily after anything better. They do not “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” they do not “seek a country;” they do not steadily seek anything; but, if they feel for a moment uneasy, they clutch their possessions and say, “At any rate I have thus much comfort secure here.” This it was which made it next to impossible for them to enter the kingdom of God, and our Lord cries unto them, “Woe.”