[0:00] Take out your Bibles with me please and turn to the Gospel of Luke.
[0:29] It is appropriate for what we are reading about today as Jesus unpacks, interprets, opens the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures to these two men walking on the road to Emmaus.
[0:45] So we will be, I will read our text and we'll pray and then we'll dig into the text. We're looking at Luke 24 verses 13 through 35.
[0:59] We'll be reading verses 13 to 35. Luke 24. If you're able please stand in honor of the reading of the Word. Remember in the last section Jesus had risen but no one had seen Him yet.
[1:19] No one had seen Him. They just knew His body was gone and the women had seen the angels and the angels had said He is risen and He's alive.
[1:31] But besides the women no one believed. So with that we come to Luke 24 verse 13. That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus.
[1:46] About seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. And while they were talking and discussing together.
[1:58] Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. And He said to them, What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?
[2:16] And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered Him, Are you the only visitor of Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?
[2:31] And He said to them, What things? And they said to Him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth. A man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word.
[2:46] Before God and all the people. And how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death. And crucified Him.
[2:58] But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.
[3:16] Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. And when they did not find His body, They came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
[3:34] Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But Him they did not see. And Jesus said to them, O foolish ones, And slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
[3:59] Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.
[4:22] So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if He was going further. But they urged Him strongly, saying, Stay with us.
[4:34] For it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So He went in to stay with them. When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.
[4:49] And their eyes were opened. And they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us?
[5:03] While He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the scriptures. And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven.
[5:14] And those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
[5:35] So it reads, Let us pray, Father, open our eyes. Open our eyes. And then you find them to behold, to see wonderful things from Your word.
[5:50] Open our hearts. May our hearts burn within as You open Your word to us. This we ask in Christ's name.
[6:01] Amen. Please be seated. And then you find them And then you find them And then you find them It is possible to know lots of Bible stories, yet miss the Bible story.
[6:24] You can know about Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, and still miss the point of the Bible.
[6:36] The disciples of Jesus knew all the stories. They knew all the prophecies. They were devoted to learn and to seek God, yet they missed the real story.
[6:50] So how are we to read the Bible so that we see what they miss? In Luke 24 here, Jesus gives us the key to open to us the Scriptures.
[7:11] And this event that we read here in Luke 24 is only recorded by Luke. It's not in Matthew. It's not in Mark.
[7:21] It's not in John. Only here. This road to Emmaus, these two travelers, Jesus appearing to them and opening the Scriptures to them.
[7:32] It's only here. And I want you to notice the structure. I love to point out the structure whenever Luke does this. He's a good writer. And he's written the structure of this event that has a chiastic pattern to it.
[7:47] In other words, the first part of the story unfolds, and then the second part of the story mirrors the first part of the story. Show that on the outline if you have it on the road to Jerusalem.
[8:01] Note the mirroring. It begins with a journey in verses 13 and 14, and it ends with a journey back to Jerusalem. In the middle, we have in verses 15 to 17, their eyes are closed.
[8:15] They don't recognize Jesus. Jesus is walking with them and talking with them, and they don't recognize him. But then later, at the end, verse 28 to 32, after he opens to them the Scriptures, their eyes are open, and they recognize him.
[8:33] Further into the story, verses 18 to 24, their understanding is limited as Jesus kind of plays with them and says, hey, what was going on? I don't know what was going on.
[8:44] And they give their testimony. They show their limited understanding of who Jesus really was. Because in their estimation, he was just a mighty prophet.
[8:56] Kind of like Moses, kind of like Elijah. Nothing more. So they had a very limited understanding of who Jesus really was. They were slow of heart to believe, as Jesus says to them.
[9:10] And then on the other side, after Jesus opens the Scriptures, then they understand. Now their understanding is increased because he's opened the Scriptures to them.
[9:21] He showed them himself in all the Scriptures. Wouldn't you have loved to have been there? And we find that they say that when he did that, their hearts were burning.
[9:32] That's different than heartburn. It's holy heartburn. Holy, okay. There you go. Dan's always got a good way to...
[9:45] Yeah, you know, their heart, they were moved, warmed. You know, Charles Wesley speaks of when he was saved, his heart was strangely warmed.
[9:57] Right? He felt that transformation. Anyway. And the heart of the whole story, what changes everything, is in verse 25 and 26, where Jesus addresses them.
[10:11] And he opens to them the Scriptures. He interprets the Scriptures to them. He explains the Scriptures, beginning with Moses, all through the prophets, through all the Scriptures.
[10:26] Wouldn't that be amazing? So, here's this nice story. We see the eyes are closed, and later they're open, the understanding limited, and after Jesus opens the Word, then their understanding is increased.
[10:42] The heart of it all is Jesus opening and interpreting the Scriptures to them. So this is Luke's first description of the appearance of Jesus, first time somebody sees him.
[10:54] They know the tomb is empty. They know the stone has moved away. They've heard that there were angels who said that he's alive, but nobody has seen him yet in Luke's description.
[11:05] So this is his first one. And this is a unique one because none of the other, as I said, none of the other Gospels tell this story of this journey seven miles away from Jerusalem and Jesus walking with them.
[11:19] So what do we find? On the third day, here Jesus appears. What does Luke show us about the condition of the heart? Because we have the heart that is slow to believe and then becomes the heart that's burning, that's believing, that can't wait to get back and tell the others what had happened to them.
[11:41] So that's what we have. So we have two conditions. So he shows us a before and an after. He shows us the heart that's slow to believe in verses 15 to 25 and then verses 26 to 35, we see a believing heart after Jesus opens the word.
[12:00] So Jesus first, so Jesus first appears to them. Their eyes are unseen. Verse 15, while they're talking and discussing together, Jesus drew near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them, what are you talking about?
[12:17] What is this that you're discussing as you walk together? And notice verse 17, the end of verse 17, they stood still looking sad.
[12:32] So this is the third day. This is the day, that morning Jesus had risen. They were there long enough to hear the reports of the women who had gone early and come back, testified about the angel.
[12:47] They were there long enough to hear Peter who had gone. We had read verse 12. Peter had gone and confirmed, yeah, nobody there. Peter walked away amazed, right? He was wondering, thinking this through, theorizing what had happened.
[13:02] Why are the grave clothes there undisturbed and the body gone? How could that be? So they had heard all of that and at some point after all of that, they left.
[13:13] They're going home. They're going home. These are not apostles. What we know, one is Cleopas. We don't know the name of the other. We know that it's not one of the 11 apostles because when they return, they find the 11 together already.
[13:28] Now notice in verse, I think it's 16, their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
[13:46] So it's passive. In other words, it happened to them. Their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Interesting. And then, do you see how Jesus acts through this time?
[14:00] Hey, what are you guys talking about? Oh, are you the only one that hasn't heard? Oh, what do you mean? What happened? You know, as he's playing along.
[14:12] Why is he doing this, right? It's pretty interesting. Why are their eyes veiled? Why this episode where they're walking, they don't recognize him until he breaks the bread and then he vanishes?
[14:32] Right? Why delay this? Why delay showing who he is? I think it's to draw out these men, to draw out what they understand, to show the limit of their understanding, to show their foolish thinking.
[14:51] we see what partial understanding they have in verse 18 as they, Jesus says, what is it? And Cleopas says, are you the only one that didn't know what happened?
[15:03] Everybody knows what happened. Verse 19, what things? And so they describe who they believe Jesus is. Notice the limit of their understanding.
[15:15] Well, it's about Jesus of Nazareth, and they must say Jesus of Nazareth because there's lots of Jesus. It's a common name in the first century. All right? So this is Jesus, the one from Nazareth.
[15:28] He was a mighty prophet in deed and word before God and all the people. That's who he is. So in other words, he's like Moses.
[15:40] Maybe like an Elijah. Not a regular prophet, a great prophet, a mighty prophet. His words are mighty, his deeds are mighty, he's raising people from the dead.
[15:53] Elijah did that. But that's it. That's all. Their view of him isn't much more than the secular person today who might say, oh yeah, I think Jesus was probably a prophet.
[16:08] A lot of the non-Christian folks, the Muslims, believe Jesus was a prophet. All right?
[16:20] Of course, Jesus doesn't allow you to have that view of himself because he says he's the son of God and the Lord, so he's either a liar or he's a lunatic or he's who he says he is.
[16:33] You don't get to, he doesn't give us that option to think he's just a prophet because if he's a lying prophet, then he's not a prophet. If he's a lunatic prophet, then he's not a prophet.
[16:45] If he's a Lord prophet, well, that's a whole different thing. He's more than a prophet. So, but they have this limited. They don't get it yet. They have not connected the dots. They're not different from the apostles.
[16:56] apostles. We had hope, verse 21. We had hoped. We had a hope for a while while he was alive.
[17:06] We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped that like Moses delivered us from the Egyptians, that Jesus would be the one to deliver us from the Romans.
[17:18] We had hoped that he would redeem us, that he would free us. But now it's the third day.
[17:30] Is that about the third day? They admit it's the third day, yet that phrase, third day, doesn't ring any bells for them. Even though Jesus had told them again and again and again, on the third day, I will rise.
[17:45] But they're already going home on the third day. We're done. Our hopes have been smashed. Our deliverer's gone. So what happens?
[18:00] Verse 25, Jesus finally addresses them and says, is this kindness? O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.
[18:14] O foolish ones, what does foolish mean? Foolish does not mean they're unintelligent. He's not calling them stupid. Foolishness has nothing to do with that.
[18:26] You can be a very intelligent person and be a fool. Fool is what you do with your knowledge or don't do with your knowledge.
[18:38] So the word foolish actually literally means to not think. You're not thinking. So in the Proverbs, talk about the wise man and foolish man, right?
[18:49] The wise man is the one who thinks out the consequences. He thinks out what he does and what that leads to. The foolish person is the one that doesn't consider his actions, doesn't consider the consequences.
[19:04] So he's not thinking. He's just passive. Slow of heart, dull of heart to believe. The heart, remember in scripture, the heart is not the emotional part, not the affections.
[19:17] The heart is the thoughts and intentions. As Hebrew says, thoughts and intentions of the heart. Heart is, in Hebrew thinking, heart is where our thoughts and intentions come from.
[19:31] To us, the heart is emotion, right? That's what we, in our culture, but in that culture, that wasn't the case. The soul was the affection part in the Hebrew thinking. So they're dull of heart.
[19:44] They're dull in their thinking. They're unwilling. Thoughts and intentions, they're unwilling to accept and unable to grasp. So let's get some help from Paul.
[19:56] What is it that keeps people from understanding the gospel? The gospel is simple enough to understand, is it not? Right? The gospel is what?
[20:07] Four things. It is God, who God is, it is man, who man is. So who's God? Holy, righteous, merciful, loving, right?
[20:20] Who's man? Not. Right? A rebel, a disbeliever, a want to do it my own way, wander off onto my own way, right?
[20:32] So then, so God is forgiving, but man is sinful, but God is also holy. So what, how can God resolve being holy and forgiving?
[20:45] How can he forgive? Well, that's the third part of the gospel. That's Christ. How can God forgive? How can a holy God forgive? He puts it on another. He puts our debt on another.
[21:00] And so in Christ, his holiness and his mercy come together. And then what's the fourth part of the gospel? God, man, Christ, response, faith.
[21:13] The gospel is all four of those. We leave any one of those out, we don't have the gospel. God, man, Christ, response, faith, faith. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[21:31] Right? That is our gospel. gospel. So what keeps people from understanding that simple truth? Well, they can understand it, but they don't believe it. So what keeps people from believing it?
[21:43] Right? Accepting it. But here's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2. He says, Among the mature, we do not impart, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
[22:02] We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
[22:19] But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.
[22:29] these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
[22:41] For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
[22:55] Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. Why? That we might understand the things freely given to us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
[23:17] spiritual. The natural person, the natural person, the person that does not have the Spirit of God, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.
[23:28] Why? They're folly to Him. They're foolishness. That's ridiculous. And He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
[23:45] So what Paul is saying is God's wisdom is hidden and it must be revealed by His Spirit. To understand the things of God we need the Spirit of God. We don't get to define God the way we want to define God.
[24:02] Because as soon as we define God in our own understanding, He's not God. That's not God. God gets to define Himself.
[24:13] We don't get to change that. And He gets to define how He will save us through something that seems to us like foolishness. A cross? Really?
[24:24] The Son of God taking on flesh and dying in our place? Who came up with that? God? Amen. Can't we save ourselves?
[24:36] No. God gets to define all of that. God gets to define God. So until we have the Word open to us, until we have God's Word revealed to us, as these men did have Jesus opening it to them, so us, as we walk on our road, right, trying to understand, until the Spirit starts to open our minds and open our eyes and help us to understand these things, we won't get it.
[25:08] We won't get it. We could say what it is. Oh yeah, Jesus died for your sins. No, no, no. You have to believe. Lots of non-Christians can say that. They get that.
[25:18] They know the words, but they don't get it. And they don't accept it. They don't believe it. Why? Because the natural person isn't able to get it.
[25:30] can't we just put it in a book and write it down and we think so.
[25:45] So, first condition. First heart condition we see before Christ explains things is the heart, the foolish heart that's slow to believe.
[25:57] Now let's look at the second one, the heart that is believing, the believing heart. And the believing heart is when God opens the scriptures to us.
[26:08] That's when we have a believing heart. Please understand there's different belief. Before I was transformed, before I was born again, I believed every word of this.
[26:24] I believed it. I knew it was true. But it didn't change my heart. Okay? Didn't remove my shame. Didn't remove my guilt. Didn't change who I was.
[26:36] I still hated God. I hated his commandments. I did them because I had to. Well, if someone was looking, when someone wasn't, yeah, it's a different story.
[26:50] Right? Until God opened my heart. Until God changed me. Until God revealed himself. I wasn't a true believer.
[27:00] I thought I was. I was just very confused and very, very, what's beside confused? Disillusioned.
[27:11] God But a believing heart comes when God opens the scriptures to us. So, Jesus, in verse 26, then begins to open the word to them.
[27:25] Look at this. Verse 26, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Was it not necessary?
[27:35] In other words, it was necessary. Jesus is saying it was necessary from the very beginning that the Christ, the Messiah, must suffer these things.
[27:49] In other words, be crucified and die and then enter into his glory. Jesus says it was necessary. In other words, what Jesus is giving us is a new way of understanding the scriptures.
[28:05] that they had not had, that we had not had before. A new hermeneutic, so to speak. Anybody know what hermeneutic is? You ever heard of it? The word here where it says Jesus interpreted the scripture, he hermeneutic, hermeneu, okay, the Greek word is hermeneutic.
[28:22] Our English word is hermeneutic and it means to unfold something. It means to explain something. So he's interpreting, he's explaining, he's unfolding, unpacking the scriptures for them.
[28:34] And what he's giving them at the same time is a new hermeneutic, a new way of understanding, opening and understanding the scriptures that they had never had, that I never learned growing up in church, that I never learned in seminary.
[28:55] Here's Jesus saying it was necessary. so the central hermeneutic of the Bible is Jesus Christ and that he must suffer and then enter into his glory.
[29:10] In other words, what he's saying and what he's going to do for them next is he's going to go back to Moses and he's going to walk all the way through the Old Testament and show them Christ suffering, entering into his glory.
[29:23] Christ suffering, entering into his glory over and over and over again all the way through the Old Testament. Have you seen that in the Old Testament? No?
[29:35] Nobody's seen that? Come on. Some of you have been here a while. I think I've opened it a little bit because once I came to understand this, I couldn't wait to tell you. What I learned in seminary was you don't say it's Jesus unless it's absolutely clear.
[29:53] and it says it. Well, go back in your Old Testament and show me how many times it says Jesus. I'll book a Joshua. Okay, Joshua, Jesus, same, but Joshua's not Jesus.
[30:08] How many times did you find in one of the prophets that it said on the third day he'll rise? That's a doozy to find that one. And Jesus says it's there.
[30:21] How can we miss it? that's why I started this sermon by saying you can know lots of stories of the Bible and never know the story.
[30:35] You can know all about Moses and Elijah and Daniel and David and Joseph, all those guys. You can say, oh, they're wonderful heroes of the Bible, aren't they? be like Moses.
[30:50] You know, kill people. Or be like, he killed somebody, didn't he? So you want to be like Moses? Be like David, the great warrior and faith man who also committed adultery and murdered and lied and, okay, maybe not be like David.
[31:10] Be like David good at times. Okay. See, if you just read the Bible and say, let me learn the lessons from the Bible stories, so be a better person, right?
[31:24] Is that it? Is that the message of the Bible? Just moralism? You can get that at the Mormon church. You can get that at the Jewish synagogue.
[31:37] Moral lessons. Unfortunately, you can get that in most churches, in Sunday schools and in sermons. That's what I got.
[31:50] I also heard about Jesus because, you know, you come to the New Testament, you got to talk about Jesus. But in the Old Testament, no, you can't talk about Jesus. He's not there. And yet Jesus is saying, what is he saying?
[32:02] Beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted, unpacked, unfolded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Beginning with Moses.
[32:13] Where did Moses write? Where does Moses' writing start? Genesis. He wrote the first five books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, right?
[32:25] So all that, so beginning with the first five books. Opening to page one of Genesis, Adam. Adam's great. Chapter three, oh, Adam's not so great.
[32:40] He can't be my hero either. Walking through. So how do I read the Old Testament?
[32:51] Jesus is saying that it all points to him, that he's all, he's all through it. So how? Well, there's lots of prophecies.
[33:02] There are specific prophecies. you go to Genesis 315, right? The serpent, right? The seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, right? That mysterious saying that God said in the curse of the serpent, the serpent will trip up the seed of the woman, right?
[33:21] The seed of the woman meaning Christ in the future. But the seed of the woman, Christ in the future, will crush the head of the serpent, right? Which is what Jesus did when he rose from the dead.
[33:33] He crushed the serpent. The serpent bruised the heel of Jesus. In other words, Satan thought he won. Serpent thought he won. Killed Jesus. What Satan didn't know was the Son of God can rise from the dead and crush the head of the serpent.
[33:52] So starting there, then Genesis 22, talking about Abraham, blessing all the families of the earth, not just the Jews, but all the families of the earth, that the seed of Abraham would bless everyone.
[34:04] Go then to Deuteronomy 18, 15. Somebody like Moses will come along. In fact, he'll be better than Moses. And if you didn't listen to Moses, that's one thing, but if you don't listen to this one who's like Moses, you will die.
[34:18] So speaking of the Christ to come, Psalm 2, Psalm 16, Psalm 110, Psalm 118, Isaiah, lots of stuff in Isaiah, isn't there? Psalm, Isaiah 7, we sing at Christmas time because there's a virgin, right?
[34:33] Psalm, or Isaiah 9, he's also at Christmas time. He's on and on. Isaiah, let alone Isaiah 53, which we read and think, oh, that's obvious, Jesus, right?
[34:49] Bearing sin, right? The righteous one bears the sin of others. Jews, but the Jews never understood Isaiah 53 pointing to Messiah. They never saw a suffering servant.
[35:02] Their Messiah was a victor. Their Messiah was a David. He will crush the Goliaths, right? Go on, Daniel 9, Daniel 7, Micah 5, he'll be born in Bethlehem, Zechariah 9, right?
[35:20] The shepherd will be struck. He will come into Jerusalem, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there's lots of prophecies. But aside from Isaiah 53, not many of them give inference that he'll suffer.
[35:37] So where do we get that? Well, we don't understand the prophecies of Jesus just through direct written prophecies. We also understand them through pictures and patterns.
[35:50] And I believe this is what Jesus did. He showed them Adam. Adam was the beginning of a new creation. The New Testament talks about how Christ is the new Adam, right?
[36:06] Who else do we got? We got Joseph. Let's look at Joseph. Remember the story of Joseph, right? He rises up to become the second to Pharaoh and he saves all of Egypt, saves everybody because of his wisdom, right?
[36:21] They store the crops and all this stuff. What about the first part of Joseph's life? How did Joseph get to Egypt? He was rejected by his brothers.
[36:32] He was sold to this caravan that went down to Egypt and so he's rejected. For 20 years he's in prison or in labor.
[36:44] And then suddenly one day he's exalted to be the right side of Pharaoh. How'd that happen? What you have in Joseph is a pattern of one who was rejected, suffered, and exalted.
[37:01] You have the same thing with Moses. Moses first came out that first day, right? He came out and he thinks I'm the deliverer, I'm the one God called, and he sees his brother beating up, or two of the Israelites beating each other up, and what does he do?
[37:18] He kills one. Moses, our Savior. And what did they say to Moses? Who do you think you are? You think you're the prophet and deliverer for us?
[37:31] What happens to Moses? 40 years in the desert. Brought back by God, 40 years later, and he becomes the prophet and the deliverer, the very thing they rejected.
[37:43] Moses suffers and then is exalted. David, same thing, suffers, exalted.
[37:58] See, there's the pictures in the Old Testament. The Exodus, the Exodus is a picture of Christ's salvation. The Exodus was a saving delivery from physical slavery, right?
[38:13] Christ is the new Passover lamb, right? That saves from a spiritual slavery, slavery to sin. So, I think this is what Jesus did.
[38:27] He's just kind of walking through all these stories, showing the pictures and the patterns. He's talking about the very specific prophecies that were declared or written.
[38:38] man. Now, I wasn't there, but I'm starting to learn how to connect some of these dots.
[38:50] They're there. They're all over the place. After I learned this, we went back and preached through Genesis. We saw all kinds of stuff. Later, we preached through Exodus. We saw all kinds of stuff.
[39:00] We saw third day stuff in Exodus, by the way. on the third day, they reached the other side. Right? I mean, we'd start seeing third day coming up, but it was in the stories, not in the, you know.
[39:18] Anyway, we went through, okay, we'll recite what we've been through, but it's amazing. So what Jesus is teaching us is when you read the Old Testament, here's what you do.
[39:30] Look for Jesus. Don't go nuts and find them in every single little thing, but look for patterns. See, the Old Testament is full of shadows.
[39:40] Okay, what's a shadow? Can you see my shadow? No? My hand's in the way. Okay, imagine the light shining, there's a shadow back there, right? Okay, it's shining the wrong way.
[39:51] It's there. So what do you have? You have an outline. If you just look at the shadow, not my hand, what do you see? Just a shadow. Do you see any fingerprints?
[40:02] Or lines? Or details? Or color? No, just a shadow. That's David. This is Christ. That's Moses. This is Christ.
[40:14] See, what they show, what those old pictures show us, is just an outline. Not full color. It's just a pattern. Right?
[40:25] So suffering and exalting. Or the exodus, right? The deliverance. And when Jesus comes, we see the whole full color, multi, 4D, I don't know what's the newest thing, you know, full plasma or plasma's past now, I don't know.
[40:47] I haven't kept up with anything for about 15 years. Whatever the newest thing is that gives you the clearest detail, that's Jesus compared to the old. So David ate much when you look at Jesus.
[41:00] Jesus. Okay? But he was a shadow of him. He gave us a glimpse of him. And that's why the Jews did understand that much, that he'd be a son of David.
[41:15] He'd be something like David. But not the exact David. God so they, verse 32, their hearts are changed, right?
[41:29] Their hearts are burned within them, burning within them as they, as he opened the scriptures, they begin to see and grasp these things. Their response to, is immediately to journey back, to go back to Jerusalem, to talk to the eleven, to tell them we saw Jesus and what he did.
[41:45] So they, verse 33, they return to testify of their experience. when they get there, verse 34, they find out Jesus has already appeared to Peter. Well, when did that happen?
[41:59] Well, we're not told. Maybe it was, well, they're in Emmaus and they're having lunch, right? And Jesus disappeared. Maybe he disappeared to go appear to Peter. I don't know how it worked.
[42:11] But they learned he's already appeared to Simon, Simon Peter. And then, verse 35, they tell their experience of what happened. what they realize is Jesus is starting to appear among all of them.
[42:24] He's starting to appear all over the place. One at a time, or a group at a time. Right? As we read in 1 Corinthians 15, he appears to James, and he appears to Simon, and he appears, right, to 500 at one time.
[42:39] He appears to the apostles. He appears later to Paul on the road, right? So, here's a question that I have.
[42:51] So, Jesus has opened these scriptures that they didn't understand until he opened them. So, part of our responsibility as believers is to share what we know with others, right?
[43:04] To testify, to give witness. So, that's what these guys did when they got back to Jerusalem. They testified. They just said, here's what happened. Here's how I met Jesus. That's how we give our testimony, by the way, right?
[43:17] I don't have to go into theology. I don't have to do what Jesus said. I don't have to go all through the Old Testament. I just tell my experience. Here's who I was.
[43:28] Here's how Jesus showed up to me. And here's how I've changed. Right? That's our testimony. But if this whole thing of the gospel is a mystery that must be revealed by the Spirit of God, how should we communicate it rightly?
[43:45] When I want to tell the gospel to somebody else, how do I do that rightly? Because there's right and wrong, right? I've heard lots of wrong ways with music and drama.
[44:03] They were creative ways, but they weren't what the scriptures say. so here's what Paul says. 1 Corinthians 1.
[44:16] Paul says, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Okay? How? How, Paul? To preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom.
[44:30] Not fancy words, not words that manipulate, not words that twist in turn, not just not with eloquent wisdom. Lest, why? What's at stake? Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
[44:44] Okay? That's a very important statement. I need to be careful how I tell my testimony. Keep my testimony as simple as possible. Keep the gospel as simple and plain as possible.
[44:55] Don't fancy it up. Don't become a philosopher. Okay? Not with eloquent ways. Lest the cross of Christ be empty of its power. For the word of the cross is what?
[45:06] Folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Well, then how do I communicate it so it's the power of God and not the folly? For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.
[45:18] So in other words, God is saying, I don't want to use man's wisdom, because that will empty the power of the cross. So where is the one who's wise? Where is the scribe?
[45:29] Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, now watch now, for since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
[45:50] see, God does exactly what the opposite of our inclination. We want to dress it up, and we want people to be saved, we want people to believe, so we want to make it sound more palatable, we want to make it sound more wise, we want to make it look more dramatic with drama, but God is, Paul is saying, cut, don't, that will empty the cross.
[46:24] The cross has to be all that it is, it has to be as unspectacular as it is, it has to be as horrifying as it is.
[46:40] It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.
[46:54] Well, then we should change our method. If our method, if preaching is folly, then we should use a different method, right? No.
[47:07] We use the very method that's considered foolishness and a stumbling block. and the message that we preach is the same message that is folly and a stumbling block.
[47:20] Because God is going to confuse the wisdom of this age. God is going to thwart the philosopher of this age. He's just going to use us stupid old preachers with no fancy methods, but just simple declaration of this simple ridiculous truth.
[47:42] And he's going to save people doing that. Only God would think of this. We preach Christ crucified stumbling on it. But to those who are called, see here's the difference, to those that God, when we preach Christ crucified and just that, what happens?
[48:01] Through that God calls people. Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God for the foolishness of God, the preaching and the gospel, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, weakness of God is stronger than men.
[48:17] Paul goes on, 1 Corinthians 2, when I came to you, brothers, here he's clarifying again, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech and wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
[48:34] I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and the power.
[48:47] Why? So that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So that your faith might not rest in manipulation, that your faith might not rest in dramatic music, a dramatic portrayal.
[49:08] And I'm not against drama and music, please don't hear that, but I'm saying when it's used to manipulate. Okay, I've been there, I've grown up with that. Another verse of Just As I Am, come on, you gotta come.
[49:23] Okay, and I always came because I sucker. No, I'm not sucker. I was convinced, I was truly convicted, but walking the aisle just couldn't save me, it just, that didn't, had to be Jesus.
[49:40] How should we communicate the gospel? Well, not by worldly methods, not by manipulation, but with simple, unadulterated proclamation of Christ crucified, that Christ died for our sins.
[49:54] Does that mean we always have to preach? No, proclamation, or declaration, or solemn testimony, as the apostles did in the book of Acts. Some proclamation is forceful, fervent, but not all.
[50:12] You can have a quiet conversation that's fervent, you can have a quiet conversation that's proclamatory, is that a word? Declarative, am I making words up?
[50:26] That has solemn testimony to it. it's your deliverance, your spirit, and you give it an appropriate to your audience, or to who you're speaking to.
[50:43] So we do the simple testimony of the gospel, and then we actually trust the Holy Spirit to apply it. We trust the Holy Spirit to take those words, those foolish words, in the foolish method, and break through the heart.
[51:06] It's pretty cool. It takes a lot of pressure off of you. Just keep it simple. Just tell the truth.
[51:18] They may hate it, most will. Most will scorn it, most will, but that's okay. that's what's supposed to happen most of the time.
[51:30] But there will be some, maybe even some of the scorers will come back later and have been changed by it. Okay? We leave it to the Holy Spirit to open their heart.
[51:41] I can't open people's heart to reveal the truth, to grant them to understand and believe. Question for you today, has he opened the scriptures to you?
[51:56] Has he opened them to you? If not, ask him and keep asking him until he opens the scriptures to you.
[52:09] Let's pray. Father, we thank you for how Luke has described this story. Because we can see ourselves in this.
[52:24] We can see ourselves as those who at first just view Jesus kind of as this teacher, this prophet, this amazing person, but until you open our eyes, until you change our hearts, we don't see or believe what he really is.
[52:46] And so, Father, I pray there those here today that don't know you, don't know you in the full way, maybe know you in partialness. We ask that you would open their hearts, open their eyes, draw them to yourself, convict them of what's true, and draw them to yourself to seek you to change what only you can change.
[53:11] This we pray in Christ's name. Amen. God's Thank you.