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Luke 24:50-53

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Luke 24:47-49

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Luke 24:44-46

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Luke 24:36-43

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Luke 24:28-35

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Luke 24:25-27

The Things Concerning Him

Luke 24:25-27

October 26, 2025

Today we are returning to the Emmaus Road, so you’ll want to open your Bibles to Luke 24, and we’ll start at verse 13, Luke 24:13, as two of Jesus’ disciples have left the city of Jerusalem to make a seven-mile walk to the village of Emmaus. On the way, probably not long after they set out, they encountered the risen Lord Jesus though they failed to recognize him. And that is where their journey really began.

It’s been a couple weeks, so let’s begin by reading the account starting in verse 13, chapter 24. We’ll read through verse 27. “And behold, two of them were going that same day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. They were conversing with each other about all these things which had happened.

“And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself approached them and was going with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are these words that you are discussing with one another as you’re walking?’ They stood still, looking sad, and one of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’

“They said to him, ‘The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our elders delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him. We were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.

“‘But also some women among us astounded us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning and not finding his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also said. But him they did not see.’

“And he said to them, ‘Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses, and with all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.”

As we’ve seen the, the great irony that kind of runs through the narrative as these men are recounting what had happened to Jesus the Nazarene, the irony is that they don’t realize they’re speaking to Jesus the Nazarene. There’s no need to miss him so dearly, to mourn him so pitifully, or doubt his resurrection at all. After all, he’s alive and well. He’s walking with them, talking with them, teaching them. They’re prevented from recognizing him.

What is it that’s preventing them? What blindfold fixed over their eyes keeps them from seeing what’s right in front of their faces? No physical blindfold exists, of course, but there is some invisible blindfold, some spiritually blinding force in the heart that prevents them from perceiving the truth.

As Jesus starts to speak to them in verse 25 and addresses them, that’s what he addresses first, that blindfold. He loosens the knot on the spiritual blindfold and then helps them remove what is preventing them from seeing so clearly by doing a Bible study. Yes, Jesus did Bible studies, and you should, too.

It’s worth reflecting on, isn’t it? Jesus could have done, here, for these men, another miracle. He could have stood there in his resurrected body, disappearing and reappearing, disappearing and reappearing all around them, doing circles around them, could have magically transported them all to journey’s end in Emmaus, set them down for a gourmet meal created just by the power of his Word.

But he would never do that. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea because it is such a foolish and a profane notion. Why offer proof to overcome unbelief? What good is evidence to one whose heart is predisposed to doubt, whether disciples or enemies or anyone and everyone in between?

It’s just as he taught in Luke 16:31, “‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,’” that is, the Holy Scripture, “‘neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’” It is the power of God’s Word that is needed every time and all the time.

His omnipotent Word is the issue, the decreed plan of redemption found in the Scripture. His omnipotent Word is what called heaven and earth into existence. His omnipotent Word formed and filled everything. God has magnified his omnipotent Word according to all his name, because his Word is living and active. It’s sharper than any two-edged sword, extends from his mouth, never returning to him empty, but accomplishing all his good pleasure and succeeding in whatever he sends it forth to do, Isaiah 55.

By the Word of God, Jesus overcame the devil and his wily temptations in the wilderness. By the word of God, Jesus parried every attack of his enemies. He’s always able to turn the tables on them, call their conscience to account by the word of God, by the exposition of Scripture. By the word of God, Jesus converted sinners, called his disciples, encouraged, strengthened, and trained them. It was by the Word of God that Jesus not only accepted the cross, but he actually set his face like flint to run toward the cross. He endured the cross because of the word of God. He despised the shame, and now having overcome death as promised in the Word of God, he’s seated at the right hand of God, all because of the Word of God.

You can go all the way back to his childhood, and Jesus could recall that it was by the Word of God he came to recognize his own messiahship. It was a growing, maturing realization from his childhood onward that he himself was God’s elect one, the chosen Messiah, the Christ. You may remember back in Luke 2, I think that was ten years ago? It was at the age of twelve years, Jesus is in the temple, and he’s sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them, but also asking them questions. “And all who heard him,” Luke tells us, “were astounded at his understanding and his answers.” Where did he get that knowledge? From the Word of God. Jesus continued to study God’s Word, which caused him in Luke 2:52 to “advance in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and men.” So what was good and profitable for our Lord must, of course, be good and profitable for us, good and profitable for these men walking to Emmaus.

So as you practice expository listening today, and as I try to do expository preaching today, think and reflect on your own habits and your own tendencies. How do you handle your discouragements and doubts, or those of others? Do you go directly to Bible study with them? Or do you think that to be somehow not nice, cold, mechanical? I assure you there is a cold and mechanical way to do Bible study.

But for a heart that burns with the power of the Word of God and has the Spirit of God coursing through us, and the Word of God is dwelling richly within us, there’s no cold Bible study. There is no mechanical, rote approach to Scripture. We love the Word, and we know that it has all power to save and to sanctify and to help the hurting and heal the broken-hearted.

So what do you do when you minister to hurting people? Do you go to them with God’s Word, or do you use man’s word? Do you make use of human methods of helping others, including your own niceness? Or do you do what Jesus did skillfully, directly leading others through a careful study of God’s Word?

One more question: What would need to change in your life, in your heart, in your thinking, in your use of time, so that you can skillfully use the Word of God to minister to others, minister to yourself? What needs to change?

Let me give you two points for today. The first will be a shorter point; the second will be quite a bit longer. First point, verses 25-26, number one, Jesus exposes doubt with loving confrontation. Jesus exposes doubt with loving confrontation. The issue between doubt and faith in the truth really is the issue. If we doubt and disbelieve, we are in a no-man’s land of darkness and pain and sadness. We waffle, we hurt, we’re discouraged, we make bad decisions.

But when we anchor our hearts and our minds in the Word of God and the truth that he’s revealed, believing it, believing it to be good for our souls and good for the souls of others, and we administer the medicine to our own hearts and to the hearts of others, it makes all the difference in the world.

Discouragement vanishes. Depression goes away. We’re lifted up. We see the world from God’s perspective. We rejoice. We’re filled with gratitude, we’re heartened, we’re encouraged, we’re strengthened. We march on toward Christ-like behavior and attitudes. The Holy Spirit fills us with his, the fruit of his Word.

So that is the issue, the difference between doubt and faith, unbelief and belief. Doesn’t matter what you’re going through, what trial you face, what sadness you endure. Doesn’t matter what relational problems you have, what financial problems you have. Doesn’t matter what physical problems you have. If you trust God, fully trust God, anchored into his Word, you march on in victory.

And that’s why Jesus starts by rebuking these two. It’s a mild rebuke, but it is a rebuke. He tells them how they’re acting. Then he tells them what explains their behavior. He said to them, “‘Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.’” How are they acting? Foolish. It’s one of four different words translated into our English as fool. The Greeks, evidently thinking themselves to be wise, needed to have many different ways of expressing their scorn upon the foolish. So you have four different words.

But this is a milder word, here. It is a milder word for “foolish,” but it does have a chiding sense. He says, “You two are being dense, senseless, mindless.” What’s the reason for that? He says it’s because they’ve been slow. Slow is a word that refers to a deficient mental perception, translated dull, sometimes translated stupid. Not an insult; it’s just for those who have the ability and the capacity to know better, but they don’t use their faculties to rightly reason. They’re being dull, a bit stupid.

So he says, “You two are being dense, senseless, because you’re dull in your heart to believe the Bible.” It’s pretty direct, isn’t it? Mr. Meek and Mild? He’s getting right to the point. I mean, if this is the Wonderful Counselor at work to counsel these discouraged men, we should take some notes. He goes right to the heart of the problem. The reason for their sorrow and sadness is that they’re slow to believe the Bible, slow to believe what the prophets have spoken, dull to hear and believe and understand and embrace what God has revealed.

And that is senseless and dense, is it not? Not to believe what the God of infinite knowledge and wisdom tells us, and to prefer instead our own feelings, our own intuitions, our own experience, our own training and education, our own gut instincts, do our own thing. It’s not too smart, is it?

Had they believed, they would have never doubted. They would have no need for Jesus to say in verse 26, “‘Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’” He wouldn’t even had to pitch that rhetorical question at them. But he had to. There’s an interrogative particle that starts the sentence and expects a yes answer to this question. In other words, it was most certainly necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory.

Jesus repeatedly told his disciples these things, as we’ve noted a number of times in our study: Luke 9:22, Luke 9:44, Luke 12:50, Luke 13:32 and 33, Luke 17:25, Luke 18:32 and 33. Those are just the ones that are in Luke. Those are the predictions of Jesus which his angels actually point to in verse 7 of our text of this chapter. He’s reminding the women. He’s sending them back with that reminder of what he had told them while back in Galilee. He’s sending them back to remind the others. Go tell the other disciples, especially those Apostles. Go tell them.

Notice, though, in talking with these two, notice that he doesn’t here remind them of his own teaching. Jesus wants them to remember and consider the canonical Scripture, the written word of God. Why is that? It’s so that afterwards, when the blindfold does come off, they will see that his teaching on the one hand and biblical canonical teaching on the other hand are one and the same. What does that tell you? Same divine authority, same divine source. Jesus’ Word and the written canonical Word of God are one and the same: inspired, infallible, inerrant truth.

So in verse 26 he wants them to see the connection, notice there, between suffering and glory, and it’s in that order, always in that order: suffering and then glory. That’s the pattern in the fallen world before and after the cross. Ever since righteous Abel in Genesis chapter 4 all the way to the tribulation martyrs of Revelation chapter 6, first suffering and then glory. It’s the pattern.It’s a necessary pattern. Necessary: that’s our little verbal friend delta epsilon iota, or dei, which points to what is so because of necessity, in this case divine necessity.

So why was it necessary, as Jesus said? Why was it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Why did God order the plan of redemption that way? Why is the suffering of Christ in particular necessary? Why not bypass the suffering, just leapfrog over all that part, go straight to the glory? Well, the d-e-i, dei is the word, as that verb indicates, the plan of redemption, it’s a matter of divine necessity. In other words, there’s a theological reason for this. It’s rooted in the essence and the character of God. It has to do with his truth and his justice. And what does that truth and justice demand? It demands that the Christ must suffer these things and then enter into his glory, the glory that’s ordained for Christ.

Divine justice demands that every sin gets its just reward, that every sin against God is punished. We understand that, in the case of the unbelieving, the reprobate, that they will spend eternity in Hell, suffering what’s due to their sins, for every sin that they have committed against God and his holiness. We understand that. But on the other side, if God would show mercy to any, even one, if he would save a sinner, then he must provide in Christ a substitute who will receive their punishment because his justice must be satisfied. God does not overlook any sin, not one sin, not even a millisecond of us not loving God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, and not a millisecond of us not loving our neighbor as ourself.

It is the power of God’s Word that is needed every time and all the time.” Travis Allen

Every sin, every errant thought, every imagination that doesn’t comport to his holiness, everything that we do and say that doesn’t advance his righteousness, all those things are sins, and we do them all the time. Divine justice demands that those sins be punished, and if he’s to save any one of us, well, then it’s Christ who has to absorb all of that for those whom God would save.

Divine justice demands that the one who gave himself up as a substitutionary atoning sacrifice for the sins of sinners, though himself innocent, divine justice demands that that one receive a just reward for his sacrifice. “He committed no sin, no deceit was found in his mouth, and yet he suffered and died for our sins.”

It’s okay. Divine justice took care of that, too. “As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied,” Isaiah 53:11. And then verse 12, “Therefore, I will divide for him,” that is, Christ, “a portion with the great. He’ll divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death. He was numbered with the transgressors, and yet he himself bore the sin of many, interceded for the transgressors.”

Listen, this is his due reward. Give it to him. Give him glory. He has suffered. He’s taken a cross on himself. What should prevent this man from being duly rewarded, righteously regarded, esteemed above all creation, that heaven and earth, angels and men cry out, “Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb”?

There in Isaiah 53:12, “I’ll divide him a portion. He’ll divide the spoil with the strong. He himself bore the sin of many.” The referent of all those masculine singular pronouns, he, him, himself, is none other than the central figure of all Scripture, the Christ of God. He’s the one, the only one who can and did fulfill divine justice.

So God is just. Every sin gets its just sentence, and he is also, God is also the justifier of the one who puts faith in Christ. So he shows mercy to every sinner who will believe in him because he’s dealt with their sins.

Christ is the one in whom all things cohere. Christ is the one to whom all things point. “Through him, God reconciles all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, things in earth and things in heaven.”

And since God has revealed this plan of redemption by the prophets in the Scripture progressively over time, kind of like a dimmer switch going up in a room so that increasing over time, it gets brighter and brighter and brighter until that light is on, like a surgical light in a surgical room, casting away every shadow, so everything is seen. And that comes in the incarnation, in the work of Jesus Christ.

God’s revealed this plan of redemption, and since he’s done that progressively over time, the truth and integrity and faithfulness of God is at stake, here. He put himself on record, written record in black and white, saying, This will happen, and therefore his integrity is at stake. If one jot or tittle of the law fails, cast it all away. Turn this book into kindling for your fire because it doesn’t matter. But not one jot, not one tittle has passed away from the law. All is fulfilled, will be fulfilled. He has to fulfill all that is spoken about the Christ as a matter of necessity, as Jesus says here, because “God is not a man that he should lie or change his mind.”

So had these men studied their Bibles, had these men believed as Jesus himself had done, studied and believed, well, this meeting on the Emmaus Road would have been a sweet reunion of very, very close friends, followed by an eager conversation about Jesus entering into his glory, about the plan. What’s next? What do you want us to do? But because that hasn’t happened, and they need that blindfold taken off, Jesus does a Bible study. He counsels their souls in the Word of God, doing a Bible study.

Number two, here’s my longer point: Jesus promotes faith with skillful exposition. Jesus promotes faith with skillful exposition. The Bible study, verse 27, is what we would call Old Testament Survey. But at this point in the timeline of redemptive history, there’s no distinction between Old and New Testaments because the New Testament has not yet been written. And so it’s just Bible study for them. They have one Bible. It’s called the Old Testament to us. But it says in verse 27, “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,” that’s another way to say “beginning with the beginning,” “he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.”

Not unlike many today, not unlike many of us as well, these men understood some things concerning the Messiah. I mean, they outlined those things for Jesus as he asked them the question, “‘What things are you talking about?’” They went into some of the things that recent events concerning the Messiah. They had more that they could have, would have drawn off of. They had more that they could have gone into the Bible and talked about. But they didn’t take into account all that was written in all the Scripture because they didn’t take into account everything that God had written. They had a distorted picture of the work and the person of the Messiah. These men saw the glory of Christ in the Scripture, but they failed to see the sufferings of Christ.

It’s too bad because it’s really the sufferings of the Christ, the cross of Christ, far from demonstrating the failure of hope, that suffering, that negativity, that bad news is really the accomplishment of divine salvation. It’s the suffering of Christ and the cross. When it shows up in our own lives, it’s the suffering that gives way to glory. It’s the hard things we go through that improve us, not the easy things. Rather ironically, these disciples are blind to the glory of the Messiah because they ignored and rejected the suffering.

Calvin says there’s a common mistake, here, at the root of this. He says, “What is here said,” what Jesus said to them, “what is here said was not confined to these two persons, but as a reproof of a common fault was intended to be conveyed by their lips to the rest of their companions.”

Listen, even this, we can call this a failure on their part to believe, slow of heart to believe, they were foolish, even this in the good providence of God is going to be so useful to the disciples they talk to later. They’re going to say, Man, you guys, were we dumb! Let, let me show you, get out your Bibles. Let’s go through the Scripture together. In fact, that kind of conversation has happened ever since this incident.

This is why Jesus begins with Moses. He goes to the beginning, more accurate translation “from Moses and from all the prophets.” So there’s a coordinating conjunction, there, that joins and equates Moses and all the prophets. We could say Moses is the prototypical prophet. Others follow in the same pattern. So all, Moses and all the prophets, all the writings, all of Scripture is prophetic Scripture. So all of it inspired, prophetic, authoritative; and Jesus took them through the prophetic Scripture.

And you can skip ahead in your Bible, look at verse 44. You can see the trifold division of the Old Testament: the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms. We know that as the Torah, the Law; the Nevi’im, the Prophets; and the Ketuvim, the Writings. That’s the three-fold division recognized by the Jews, by the rabbis, by us today in the Old Testament.

So Jesus went through the Scripture, starting with Moses, going all the way through the prophets, and he illuminated the sense for them as he showed them the things concerning himself. The verb therefore illuminating the sense or showing them or unfolding for them is diermeneuo. It’s means to illuminate, to make something clear or intelligible, and that’s exactly what he did.

Now the question, here, is, how did he do it? How did he do that? The text doesn’t say, does it? Luke doesn’t tell us. Commentators differ in their opinions about how Jesus took them through the Old Testament. Some say he went back to Genesis and then moved sequentially historically through the Scripture. Some insist that he didn’t proof-text. He didn’t just take, isolate verses and cite them, but he probably moved more thematically through the Scripture.

Some say he took various doctrines and developed them in a biblical, theological way to show the progressive revelation and clarity of that doctrine, say, of atonement or of sacrifice or whatever it is, and trace that all the way through the Old Testament. Others say, no, he took different aspects of the Messiah’s work and mission and unpacked those from the Old Testament, showing himself to be prophet, priest, and king, and unpacking that through the whole Old Testament. Which is it? Let me remind you, Luke doesn’t say. So it’s impossible to say, really, what approach he took.

And I think that’s really the genius of the Holy Spirit in this account. He sends us, all of us, back to the Old Testament in many and various ways, all of us trying to attempt our own retracing of the steps that Jesus took with these disciples. It’s brilliant, really. I mean, obviously it’s the Bible, it’s the Holy Spirit, right?

The different men and women who return again and again and again to the Bible all the way through the history of the church, they interpret these things afresh, they view them from different angles, and they keep discovering new insights. There is no end to the glory of Christ in the Scripture, for “in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And it is our joy to discover that. Isn’t that great?

Now understand something before I try to tackle some of this. Our Lord had three or four hours on an afternoon walk to take these guys through a survey of the Old Testament. I have about thirty minutes. Our Lord had more time than we do. Our Lord is the central subject of all these texts. He knows them so thoroughly and so perfectly, and his mind is, further, not addled by weakness, sinfulness, forgetfulness, as is the mind of your pastor.

So I’m not able to provide a thorough biblical theology or even an adequate treatment of theological themes, types, figures, progressive unfolding of the nature of the role, the work, the types, the offices of Christ in this time we have remaining. Entire courses are offered on these issues, and they only scratch the surface of Scripture’s central figure.

I can tell you, upon entering heaven I’m signing up straightaway for that course Old Testament Survey taught by Jesus Christ. What about you? I mean, if I could be in on any conversation, this is the one. So having set your expectations sufficiently low enough that I can meet them, the bar is so low, I might be able to trip over it, that’s no disparagement of me as a preacher. I’m just trying to say this is broad and vast and deep and wide. How do you get your arms around it? And I can tell you I’ve been struggling with that.

So let’s narrow the scope a little bit and put this into manageable, a manageable approach and hopefully a manageable time frame for you as well. What we’ll do is we’ll feature the writings of Moses, hit key highlights in the Pentateuch, and we’ll make mention of the prophets and the writings, but mainly Moses. So warm up your fingers and go ahead and turn back to Genesis in your Bibles. Genesis is the first book of Torah, the law of Moses, known by the Greek word Pentateuch, Pentateuch meaning five books, referring to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All those books, including all the books of the Bible, but all of those testify to the sufferings of Christ and to the glories that follow.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to start at Genesis 3:15, the, what’s called the first Gospel, the protoeuangelion. Genesis 3:15, but I’m going to back up and read a couple other things as well. Keep in mind as we approach this, this glorious Gospel, the central figure of the Gospel, Christ Jesus, the, the God-man, who is the one and only mediator between God and man, God decreed all of this before time began. Before creating the heavens and the earth and all they contain, God decreed it, God chose it, God predestined it.

In fact, Titus 1:2 says that “God, the God who cannot lie,” he took this hope of eternal life, and he promised the hope of eternal life before time began. To whom was that promise made before time began? Before there was heaven and earth or anything in it, including angels and human beings, before time began, who was there? God, the triune God. So Titus 1:2 points to an intra-trinitarian agreement called the Pactum Salutis or the Council of Peace. It’s a pre-temporal, pre-time agreement, so to speak, among the Persons of the Trinity. This is language we use to try to understand and explain this, so it’s inaccurate, I know, but it’s the best we can do to get our arms around what was happening before time began.

God’s plan of salvation, to save his people, to call us with a holy calling, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:9, was “according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus,” when? “from all eternity.” This is an eternal decree. God predestined the wisdom of his eternal salvation, 1 Corinthians 2:7, “before the ages to our glory.” Again, this is decreed from eternity, and yet it’s revealed in time. The blessed and the only true and living God, the one who exists eternally in three persons, it was according to the good pleasure of the counsel of his will he chose to create the heavens and the earth to reveal and to magnify his triune glory, to show his triune love.

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God by his Spirit through the Son, the eternal Word. “All things came into being through by him,” John 1:3, “apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.” He called into existence the heavens and the earth, and he said, “Light shall shine out of darkness, and it was so.”

God formed the earth, and he filled it by the infinite wisdom of his perfect design. Read Psalm 8. Read passages in Job that unpack the manifold wisdom of God in the created order. You can read in for yourself in Genesis 1 and 2 how he supplied the earth super-abundantly with the fruits of his goodness. He designed the earth, its plants, its animals in creative beauty, ultimately giving the greatest honor to mankind, which is creation’s crowning glory.

God created Adam and Eve in his own image, according to his own likeness. He created Adam and Eve to enjoy loving fellowship with their Creator. They would converse with him in communion. They would learn from him as a child learns from his father. They’d commune with one another, a loving relationship of a marriage, a one-flesh partnership for life. And together they would delight in the goodness of God’s creation. They’d be thrilled to discover all of its mysteries that God had packed into the earth and it, and the heavens and the skies and the, and the seas.

He’d be keen to develop its resources and, and develop the earth and garden it, turn the entire thing into a paradise. They were to grow. They were to become the conduit of God’s eternal love. The inter-trinitarian love is now a love ad extra,that is, outside of himself, that goes through mankind to all the earth. They would exercise by that love a wise dominion over all creation.

And all that came to a screeching halt when Adam and Eve sinned against God. How could they do that? They chose to believe the deceptive fantasy of Satan, a creature, over and against the reality of what God had done, who he showed himself to be.

God said in Genesis, if you’ve got your Bible, you can turn back to Genesis 2:16-17, “Yahweh, God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat it, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.’” So the condition for living, the condition for eternal life: Just trust me, just believe me. You will live joyfully in my world. You’ll be content to obey my will, because my will is good, my heart is kind.

Satan slithered along and said to the woman in verse 4 of chapter 3, “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You shall surely not die, for God knows,’” here’s his ulterior motive. Don’t trust that guy. He looks good on the outside. Let me tell you what’s really going on, Eve. “‘God knows in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open. You’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.’” He’s jealous. That is a heart, he’s got a heart of envy.

The woman pondered this, verse 6, “saw the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes. The tree was desirable to make one wise, so she took from its fruit and ate. She gave also to her hapless husband standing with her, and he ate. “The eyes of both of them were opened, they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, made themselves loin coverings.”

God comes to confront the guilty couple, and he begins by pronouncing a curse upon the serpent. But in that curse, the first Gospel, the protoeuangelion, the pre-temporal promise that God would redeem and save and reconcile his people to himself by his grace through faith in the one that he appointed, Christ, from before time began, here it is, revealed in time in the context of a shocking fall into sin. Look at Genesis 3:14, “Then Yahweh God said to the serpent, ‘Because you’ve done this, cursed are you more than any of the cattle, more than any beast of the field. On your belly you will go, dust you will eat all the days of your life.”

Is there anybody in here who loves snakes? Because I sure don’t. Every time I see snakes out there in the wild, not in the city, I’ll get in trouble, but out there I shoot them. I don’t like snakes. There’s enmity between me and the snake. I’ve got theological grounds for it because verse 15 says, verse 15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.”

So interesting, isn’t it, that God, Yahweh God, announces this Gospel not directly to the man and the woman, but indirectly to them. But he announces it to Satan. He announces victory over the adversary of all adversaries, the chief villain of all time in history, the devil, who’s a murderer from the beginning, in fact the greatest mass murderer that ever was. He announces it to the devil. Jesus went in the spirit and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, the devil’s buddies cast into the abyss since Genesis chapter 6. He went and proclaimed his victory on the cross to them as well. He saw his Father do it first.

Here, Genesis 3:15, though in seed form, this first Gospel contains all the essential elements of the whole Gospel, a Gospel that is going to, as I said, in seed form, grow, blossom, flourish, show itself progressively through time in the rest of the Scripture. It comes into full bloom in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He would redeem the seed of the woman through the seed of the woman, that is to say, by a man born from her. It’s not common to speak of a woman’s seed. A man’s seed, yes, but a woman’s seed? Interesting. Already a hint at the Immaculate Conception, the miraculous conception of Jesus Christ in the womb, the seed of the woman.

Paul said in Galatians 4:4, “God sent forth his Son in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law.” We see in Genesis 3:15 that this man would rise above Adam. He’d surpass Adam and therefore a greater Adam who’d pass the test, this man who would win the right to redeem.

The first man, Adam, became a living being and he failed. The last Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:45, he passed the test. He became a life-giving spirit. He breathed new life, divine life, into his people by giving them the Holy Spirit, another reward of his faithfulness and obedience. That’s his exaltation, by the way.

So Christ, the life-giving spirit, imparts a new nature, one that’s at enmity with a satanic nature, one that’s at enmity and hostility with a fallen nature. “God said, ‘I will put enmity.’” That is to say, this new nature is imparted by God. He’s the one that takes the initiative. “‘I will put enmity.’” He gives a new nature imparted by divine regeneration. This is the grace of sovereign initiative. It’s not by human initiative, effort, works. No, it’s by God’s initiative. Regeneration comes by his Spirit.

The redeemer, Genesis 3:15, he suffers a bruised heel, points to a vicarious suffering of Christ. It was revealed over time, progressively in Revelation, as a substitutionary atonement, particularly in Levitical sacrifice, as the worshipper would come and put his hand on the animal, and the priest would slit the throat of the animal as he’s confessing his sins over the animal. Is that animal guilty?

Even the substitutionary atonement is hinted at not only here, but then in, further in verse 21 of the same chapter. God replaces the coverings that Adam and Eve had made for themselves, these fig leaves that are already wilting. God replaced those coverings with garments of skin taken from animals that God himself had slain. Here’s God providing a blood atonement, the first animal sacrifice in Scripture. It’s the vicarious suffering of an innocent victim.

Again, it points to Christ. Though Christ suffered as an innocent sacrifice to atone for our sins, the seed of the woman through suffering would deliver a mortal wound and crush the serpent’s head. 1 John 3:8 says that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” And indeed he did. He crushed his head. He pulverized it.

Now, I don’t know how long that took. That’s just one verse in Genesis from this humble preacher. Jesus, the greatest preacher ever, the subject of every single verse, he had three or four hours in Moses and the prophets; and I know, based on all the teaching we have recorded of him in an economy of words, he was able to distill his points and move rapidly from text to text to text. And you say, You’d better get on it, schoolboy; you’re, you’re wasting time.

So moving on, the antediluvians, those living prior to the Noahic flood, looking for salvation through the seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15, we, we read in Genesis 4:1, that “the man knew his wife Eve,” Genesis 4:1, “and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, ‘I’ve gotten a man with the help of Yahweh.’” What’s she excited about? Could this be the promised seed? Is this the fulfillment?

Well, no, it wasn’t. Cain succumbed to sin, killed his righteous brother Abel and proved himself disqualified. He’s not the seed. What about Seth? After giving birth to Seth, Eve said in Genesis 4:25, “‘God has,” sent, “set for me another,’” notice the word, “seed,’ ‘in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.’” She’s got a lot of hope in Seth. Even his children began to call upon the name of the Lord in verse 26.

But as we keep reading, it’s not long before the pattern of birth and death and birth and death and birth and death became established. Hope faded as men’s wickedness increased over time, resulting in greater bloodshed until the whole earth was soaked and God needed to intervene in the judgment of the Flood to wash that all away. And even though in Genesis chapter 6 verse 8, “Noah found favor in the eyes of God,” he himself was disqualified after the Flood, in Genesis 9:21, when he became drunk. He’s not the seed either.

But God did say in establishing this in the Noahic covenant, Genesis 9, verse 9, “‘Behold, I established my covenant with you, with your descendants after you,’” and descendants, guess what word that is: seed, zera, pointing to the future for fulfillment of the Genesis 3:15 promise.

We know that from Noah onward, there were a series of biblical covenants, all, all of these biblical covenants unfolding what theologians see as an overarching, what they call theologically a covenant of grace, that covenant of grace encapsulating all those biblical covenants.

So the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, the New Covenant, all unfolding God’s plan of redemption and accomplishing it. They portray Christ coming to fulfill what’s promised in the covenants and to fulfill the types in the covenants. He’s the reality behind the shadows. He’s the substance of all these covenants.

So in the Noahic covenant, Christ is the ark that brings his people to safety, 1 Peter 3:18-22. Christ protects his people from the overwhelming flood of divine judgment. In the Abrahamic covenant, starting in Genesis 12, verse 7, “‘To your seed I will give this land.’” It’s reiterated in chapters 15, chapter 17. We find promises about the seed of Abraham.

In fact, turn over to Genesis 22, Genesis 22, where God tested Abraham. You remember this promised seed, Isaac, not Ishmael, but Isaac. He tells, tells Abraham, “‘Take that promised son, Isaac,’” his seed. He says, “‘Take your son, your only son, the one whom you love. Let me make it real clear for you, Isaac, go there, offer him there as a burnt offering.’”

Abraham, amazingly, Genesis 22, he’s in the process of obeying God when God stopped him, stayed his hand. God had always intended this, but he sent in a substitutionary sacrifice to stand in place of Isaac, a ram caught in the thicket by its horns, Genesis 22:13. And in verse 14 Abraham called the name of that place, “YAHWEH will provide.” As it is this day in the mount of YAHWEH, it will be provided.

God would provide not only the seed, but the substitute. Indeed, God would provide a substitutionary atoning sacrifice on another mount, one called Calvary. This promised seed, Jesus the son of Abraham, the son of Isaac, the son of Jacob, who is the sacrificial lamb also for all who believe. That’s how Abraham passed the test. He returned to the, the state of the garden by believing in God, who is able to raise the dead, Hebrews 11:19 says, that God will fulfill his promise that God would save. And so Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

God’s revealed this plan of redemption, and since he’s done that progressively over time, the truth and integrity and faithfulness of God is at stake, here. ” Travis Allen

Abraham proved his faith in God by offering his son Isaac, not withholding his only son. And God delivered them both in Genesis 22:16, “‘By myself I have sworn,’ declares YAHWEH, ‘because you’ve done this thing and you’ve not spared your son, your only one, indeed, I will greatly bless you, and I will multiply your seed as the stars, the heavens as the sand which is on the seashore. Your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you’ve listened to my voice.’” Another way of translating that, another way of stating that, I should say, You’ve heeded my voice. You’ve believed me, and you obey it.

Christ is Abraham’s seed. He’s the one through whom all the nations, the earth will be blessed. He’s the ultimate child of promise, starting with Isaac, then Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel, and Christ is the child of promise.

We turn to Exodus. In Exodus, you can flip over there, but God sent Israel, as we know, into Egypt to protect the nation from a famine. But he had plans, plans to extract his people and show his power over Egypt, the superpower of the time, and its gods. He wanted to extract his people and show himself glorious over all the gods of all the earth.

So God raised up one called Moses, and God sent him to his people, Israel. And when God chose to deliver them, he distinguished between the Egyptians and the Israelites on a night when he would kill all the firstborn of Egypt. Israel’s babies would have been caught up in that as well, but God mercifully granted them a sacrifice, a substitute, a lamb, one per family, and used the blood of that lamb to act as an atonement, a covering for all who believe. Exodus 12:13 says, “‘The blood shall be a sign for you, and I will see the blood and I will pass over you. There shall be no plague among you to destroy you.’” Passed over you, you know what’s commemorated ever since then? Passover, the Passover sacrifice.

It’s John the Baptist later who identified Jesus as that atoning sacrifice, John 1:29. He said, “‘Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.’” Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover has also been sacrificed. And because of that, we’re to clean out the old leaven.”

You know what he’s referring to, there? That’s the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You commenced the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread by rooting through your home and finding every bit of leaven, which represents sin, casting it out. And Paul uses that as an example of how we’re to purge sin from the congregation itself. You know what feast is underway when these two disciples left Jerusalem for Emmaus? The Feast of Unleavened Bread. These two disciples walking with Jesus to Emmaus, they’re walking with the, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Also in Exodus, we see in chapter 20 the Law of Moses, called the Law of Moses because it was given to him at Sinai. And there’s a Mosaic covenant summarized in Ten Commandments, then elaborated further in a sacrificial system, the priesthood, the tabernacle, all the accoutrements of worship. According to Colossians 2:17, “the substance of all these things belongs to Christ.”

But let me focus in on one piece within the Holy of Holies, a place called the mercy seat. The mercy seat is the lid, the covering of the Ark of the Covenant, and that mercy seat in the middle of the lid of the Ark of the Covenant is flanked by two golden cherubim. And that place, that mercy seat, is called the place of propitiation, the hilasterion. It’s the place where the blood is sprinkled to appease the wrath of God. The sacrifice itself, the blood that satisfies the wrath of God for sins, is a related word called the hilasmos. Again, this is all picturing Christ. He’s the covering. He’s the blood. “God sent his Son to be the propitiation,” 1 John 4:10, the hilasmos, “for our sins.”

We come into Leviticus, and almost every page in Leviticus pertains to Christ. He fulfills all the burnt offerings, all the grain offerings, the peace offerings, the sin offerings, the guilt offerings. In Christ is the cleansing for sin that defiles worse than leprosy. It’s more disgusting, sin is, than leprosy. All the defilements of body and soul cannot compare to what sin does to a life. And he, Christ, not only cleanses us from sin, but purifies us in his holiness. Christ is the great High Priest, not over the, not after the Aaronic order, but after the order of Melchizedek, as prophesied in Psalm 110:4, and then elaborated further in Hebrews 5, 6, and 7.

“We have a high priest,” Hebrews 7:26, “who,” the writer says, “is holy and innocent and undefiled and separated from sinners, and he’s exalted above the heavens.” This high priest doesn’t need to, like Aaron and the other high priests of Israel, he doesn’t need “to offer up daily sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of other people, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.”

We go to the book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers, Jesus identified himself as the bronze serpent that God lifted up to deliver his people from the judgment that he himself had sent to them. You remember that once again Israel was complaining, and they’re not content, they’re not grateful, they don’t have humble, thankful hearts, and instead they complain. They grumble against Moses; they grumble against God.

Turn over to Numbers chapter 21 and verse 6. What did YAHWEH do? “YAHWEH sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many of the people of Israel died. And then the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned because we’ve spoken against YAHWEH and against you. Pray to YAHWEH that he may remove these serpents from us.’”

The poison of those serpents is flowing through their veins, coming close to their hearts to cause a clotting and a cardiac arrest. This is an urgent crisis, a dire need, and Moses prayed for the people. There he is: the mediator between God and man, again pictured in Christ.

Moses prayed for the people, and then, verse 8, “YAHWEH said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, set it on the standard, and it will be that everybody who is bitten, everyone who is bitten and looks at it will live.’ Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on the standard. It happened that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”

I ask you, I ask you medical doctors, what connection is there to eradicating, treating poisonous serpent bites and looking at a bronze serpent on a stick? Zero, you answer? Right answer. Think about that. What do they need to do? Believe in the remedy, trust Moses and his word, look upon the serpent. Just do what God says and you’ll live.

Jesus is the greater Moses. He’s the better mediator of a better covenant, and he’s the greater symbol of deliverance. And in both cases, between Jesus on the cross and the serpent on the stake, that instrument of divine deliverance is totally offensive to those who are stricken by death, isn’t it?

No one wants to look at a bronze serpent when that’s the very thing that inflicted the pain on you. No one wants to look at a dying Christ on a cross, either, a stark reminder of what each one of us deserves as a just payment for our sins. But nevertheless, God says, “Look and you will live.” John 3:14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” You want to live? Look. Look at the remedy that God provided.

The final book of Moses, Deuteronomy, literally, second law, that’s what the word means, deuteronomos. It reiterates the Sinaitic covenant, the Mosaic covenant. Most of Deuteronomy is sermonic material of Moses. He delivered it to the next generation of Israelites. Why the next generation, the second generation that came out of Egypt? Why did it, why to them? Because all their parents were dead. They did not believe. They came out of Egypt, saw all of God’s power, his miracles, his greatness, and they distrusted him still. So God wiped them out, strew their bodies all over the wilderness in Sinai, and raised up their children.

Now their children are grown, forty years later. They’re ready to enter into the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership, not Moses’. He’s a great mediator, a wonderful prototypical prophet, but he sinned. He sinned against God. He did not regard God as holy in the incident of striking the rock instead of speaking to it as God had said. So God said, You’re not going to enter, you failed. You failed as a mediator. You failed as my prophet. I’m going to raise up the Christ, one of many references to Christ in Deuteronomy.

They all give, there’s so many things to say, but just one in Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronomy 8:3, God gave Israel manna to feed them while they were journeying in the wilderness, so they didn’t have to plant crops, plow, plant, cultivate, feed, sow, soil, all the things that farmers have to do. They didn’t have to wait over all those years. They wandered all the time, and God still fed them, fed them, fed them. Why’d he give them this manna, this bread from heaven? Deuteronomy 8:3 says “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of YAHWEH.”

You know Jesus, he said the same thing, making a connection directly to that text in John chapter 6 in verse, starting in verse 49. This is after he fed the 5,000, by the way, with two fish and five loaves, miraculously feeding 5,000 men, and really they are probably 10 to 20,000 if you include the women and the children.

But Jesus makes this connection in John 6:48. He says, “I’m the bread of life.” You come chasing after me for plain old bread. Though it’d be miraculous, it’s only going to feed you for today. “I’m the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.” It’s a double reference. It’s talking about the manna only being able to sustain their physical life. But further, why did they die? Why did God lay their bodies all over the wilderness? Because they disobeyed. They didn’t trust him.

So Jesus says, “‘This is the bread which comes down from heaven so one may eat of it and not die. I’m the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he’ll live forever. And also, the bread which I give for the life of the world is my flesh.’” His body was broken for us. His blood was shed to make us partakers of a new covenant. And now that he is risen from the dead, his resurrected life feeds us continually with true bread from heaven. He imparts eternal life to us by the Spirit.

I realize that’s only scratching the surface of the surface of what is available to us in the Old Testament concerning Christ. You could say it’s the tip of the iceberg, but it’s really not even that. It’s just a few snowflakes we’ve examined on the tip of that tip of the iceberg. Yet we feel so inadequate. We come into this vast depth and breadth and height and length of the Old Testament and see Christ is everywhere. We could survey the Old Testament, see Christ’s essential nature as the God-man, the only one who is truly God, truly man, having two natures, one human, one divine.

Christ is the Son of Man. It’s a term associated in Ezekiel with Christ. Ezekiel, the son of man, he is the mediator. He represents God to a sinful people and stands in the gap for sinners before a holy God. But we find out that there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Even though God addressed Ezekiel over and over again, son of man, son of man, son of man. Look at what these people are doing. Look at what these people are doing. Should I not be offended? Should I not judge them? Oh, yes, you should, Lord. Yes, you should.

According to Daniel 7:13, the Son of Man receives an exalted future. As we see, not only is he there for suffering, but also for glory. The Son of Man receives, Daniel 7:13 and following, dominion, glory, a kingdom, that all peoples and nations and men might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which won’t pass away. His kingdom is one which will never be destroyed. Why? A reward for his obedience.

We know he’s not only the Son of Man, he’s also the Son of God. Psalm 2:7, “‘You’re my son. Today I’ve begotten you, and how blessed are all who take refuge in him.’” Psalm 10, 110:1: “YAHWEH says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.’” Jesus drew out that implication, saying in Luke chapter 20, “‘If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’” I mean, figure out this little mystery for me. He’s the Son of God. He’s got a divine nature. He’s the Son of Man. He’s got the nature of a man. He’s the perfect representative between God and man.

We could go on surveying the Old Testament, see his federal role, his covenantal role, as Christ is the representative head of a new humanity. He’s the better Adam, therefore the last Adam. So where Adam failed, as we’ve already gone through, Christ succeeded. He triumphed. He merited our salvation. We continue surveying the Old Testament and see Christ’s mediatorial work unpacked, there, where he suffers in the place of sinners, dies in their stead, especially in that magisterial Isaiah 53, or as we read earlier in Psalm 22, crucifixion portrayed in detail there.

But beyond his suffering and dying for sins, which for us in our time all that is complete, his mediatorial work continues in eternal perpetuity, onward and onward in the three offices of his mediatorship: prophet, priest, king. Every prophet of the Old Testament failed in some way. Every priest in the Old Testament failed in some way. Every king in the Old Testament failed in some way, all pointing to the need for one to fulfill it all.

Christ is the prophet God promised Moses, Deuteronomy 18:18: “‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you. I’ll put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.’” The perfect teacher, prophet, revealer of God’s will. Christ is the great High Priest that God promised. He’s greater than Aaron, according to the priesthood of Melchizedek, who not only serves us in this life, but also on in perpetuity in the life to come.

Christ is the King God promised. We haven’t even seen or talked about that, have we? The, the Davidic covenant, God’s promise to David according to 2 Samuel 7:13, “‘I’ll establish the throne of his kingdom forever.’” It’s exactly what the angel Gabriel was referring to, the Davidic covenant, fulfillment in Christ when he told Mary in Luke 1:32-33. “‘He will be great. He’ll be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He’ll reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will have no end.’” Fulfillment, Davidic covenant. He’s prophet, priest, and king.

We’ve mostly surveyed the necessity of Christ suffering these things, hardly touched on the other part that Jesus identifies in verse 26, the part that he must enter into his glory. So you got a couple minutes? Prophet, priest and king: Let’s run through those again. In his prophetic office, Christ is going to continue throughout eternity, teaching his people, teaching us. He’s going to daily reveal further layers of infinite glory of God the Father, he being assisted by the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit, who indwells every single one of us.

Though we are mere creatures now, we’re going to be delivered, glorified from any weakness of the flesh, any sin, anything that clouds. There’s going to be no blindfold then. You know what we going to continue to do with our great prophet? Learn and rejoice and discover, our souls being thrilled, our minds being exploded. We’re invited to explore this never-ending treasury of the divine mind, led by the treasure-keeper himself, “in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

That’s his prophetic office going on into eternity in his priestly office. Yeah, he’s going to continue his priestly ministry. No longer does he need to interpose the blood of his sacrifice for our sins because we will have our sins removed, gone, never any presence of sin for us forevermore.

No, instead he’s going to keep on as a priest does, interceding for us, praying for us so that we’ll understand the things that he gives us. He’s going to stimulate us, provoke us, evoke, otherwise encourage our prayers. So drawing out our prayers as we pray with him, our great High Priest, and he aligns us in perfect accordance with the will of the Father.

Christ is going to agree with our prayers. Why? Because we pray according to God’s will all the time, just like he does. We’re going to join him. He’s going to lead our prayer meetings. Think prayer meetings then will be poorly attended like they can be now? No. We’re going to rejoice in praying with him. We’re going to love being there, hearing about the will of God unfolded and what we get to do next. And we’re going to join him in prayer. Ora et labora. We’re going to pray and then work.

The unfolding, the eternal unfolding of the knowledge of the truth, the infinite mind of God is going to stir our glorified affections and inform our glorified prayers and lead to glorified action forever. Is this cool, or what?

In his kingly office, Christ is going to continue to lead us no longer as a wartime king like David who needs to put down his enemies to protect his people. That work is done. That’s over, that’s history. He’s now a peace-time king like King Solomon. He’s going to administer a glorified kingdom in wisdom. He’s going to beautify his kingdom, and he’s going to beautify us in wisdom and holiness, his kingdom citizens.

Christ is going to bring into his kingdom the glory and honor of the nations, “that God the Father may receive all glory and honor and power, for he created all things, and by his will they existed and were created,” Revelation 4:11.

He’s a wise king, building, beautifying, administrating, and Christ is going to lead us in blessed labors, intelligent industry, abundant productivity, fruitfulness in that time to the glory and the honor of God forever. We’re the people, we the people are going to rejoice to follow him. We’re going to go wherever he goes.

All this by the exercise of Christ’s perfected, glorified, ascended mediatorship as prophet, priest, and king. This is the satisfaction of his ascension glory: us glorified with him, we learning his mind, praying according to his will, doing all the Father’s will.

In closing, take a look at verse, go back to Luke 24, take a look at verse 32 just to see how Jesus’ teaching affected these two disciples. He suddenly left. We’ll get to that next step. But he suddenly left and they said to one another, “‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was opening up the Scriptures to us?’” We’ll get to them.

But think about it. If their hearts are burning within them, these men, still encased in sinful flesh, they still have ahead of them the struggle of the Christian life to always mortify the flesh, vivify the Christian graces, grow in spiritual virtues, repent, repent, repent. These men who like us, they groan inwardly as they wait eagerly for their adoption as sons, the redemption of their bodies and glory.

If all that and more was true of these two disciples, and yet their hearts burned within them, beloved, imagine how much more the heart of our risen Lord, now rejoicing here with them in victory, no longer subject to death, but perfected in resurrection power, resurrection glory. Imagine how his beautiful heart is partaking, here, of an infinite delight, how he’s rejoicing to see these men for whom he died, bought and paid for.

He rejoices with the Father who will just in forty days send the Holy Spirit to indwell them, to take up residence within them, to adopt them, to seal them, and then to take up his teaching role, delighting to illuminate the minds of his people, teach them, give them the gift of thrilling discoveries in the excellencies of “him who has called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.”

You know what? He’s rejoicing. He’s satisfied. He’s thrilled. He’s delighted. But up to this point, he hasn’t fully removed their blindfolds yet, has he? He has informed their faith. He’s prepared them to interpret accurately what their believing eyes are about to see, what their eyes are about to behold. So when we come back next week, the blindfold comes off. For now, let’s pray.

Our Father, what a great redemption story you have told, scripting it from before the foundation of the world. We are so thankful for what you have done, for what you’ve accomplished in Christ. We’re so thankful for just this short little survey, inadequate though it may be, but it is, it does make the case or make the point that this, this redemption story knows no end. There’s no bottom.

We continue to go deeper and deeper still, and our minds and our hearts are lifted up higher and higher into heaven to contemplate the things that “eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has any heart conceived or has entered into the heart of man all that God has prepared for those of us who love you.”

So thank you for this great salvation, and thank you for causing so many of us to believe, to put our faith in him. Thank you for removing that blindfold, for confronting our spiritual pride, causing us to be humble and contrite, to tremble at your Word.

We know that there are people here who do not yet know you, maybe people listening online who have not believed. Please be gracious to them, Father, according to your will. Open their blind eyes, take off the blindfold, and let them see the glorious, majestic Lord Jesus Christ. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.

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James 4:4

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1 Corinthians 16:13

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Luke 24:19-24

Well, we’re in Luke 24, so you’ll want to turn there in your Bibles as we rejoin the disciples on the Emmaus road. We got a bit of an introduction to this section last week, as Jesus was drawing near on this Emmaus road, to two-broken hearted disciples.

He started to, while he’s walking and talking with them or listening to them, he started to draw them out. And we learned a little bit last time about Emmaus itself, where they were heading. Learned about Cleopas, a Greek proselyte, his companion, unnamed here. But we talked about why they were headed to Emmaus in the first place.

Their previous week had been, well, let’s just say a bit of a roller coaster of emotion from the very high point of the triumphal entry and what followed from that, where Jesus entered into Jerusalem, going directly to the temple and cleansing it, casting out the buyers, the sellers, the money changers, and reclaiming the temple for his purposes, for the purposes God designed it for, to be a house of prayer for all the nations, to be a place of teaching.

So he started teaching, and the chief priests and scribes and the Pharisees didn’t like that. Sadducees, they came attacking him and challenging him about his authority to do what he did. And he answered every one of their challenges and sent them away with their tails between their legs.

All that triumph and all that glory and all that rejoicing, that high point for Jesus and his disciples, followed by the low, low point of the events of Christ’s passion, betrayed by one of his inner circle. How could that be?

He’s arrested at the behest of the Jewish leaders, followed by a night of sham trials, and he’s handed over to their will, delivered to a public execution by the most shameful death possible, on a Roman cross.

So these disciples are headed home, probably the home of Cleopas. They’re just trying to get away from that city. They’re discouraged, and they’re in no frame of mind, really, to stay in Jerusalem for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They’re not in a festive frame of mind at all. They need some space to think and pray, regroup, consider their next steps. What does life look like when your Messiah has been killed? What’s next?

So they’re making this seven-mile trek to Emmaus from Jerusalem, and the two disciples are discussing all these things. In fact, that reference to “these things,” you can kind of trace it in your text, these things, these things. It’s repeated six times in the passage.

And these things, kind of, it’s a big bucket that holds a bunch of jumbled facts and details and stories, and all of them are kind of jumbled up and scrambled together and confused in the minds of these men until Jesus draws near to draw them out.

Take a look at verse 13. We’ll just cover the text we read last time. “But behold, two of them were going that same day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. And they were conversing with each other about all these things which had happened. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself approached and was going with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are these words that you are discussing with one another as you’re walking?’

“They stood still, looking sad. And one of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?’ He said to them, ‘What things?’” Their answer gets right to the point: “‘The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene.’”

Jesus’ questioned them has a focusing effect. It draws these men to the chief subject of, quote, “all these things.” What are “all these things” about? Jesus the Nazarene. By the time we get to verse 27, the ambiguity and the uncertainty in their minds kind of gives way to clarity that Jesus provides through Scripture, a new-found certainty as “these things” become laser focused on in verse 27: “the things concerning himself.”

Folks, let me ask you something. Before we look any further at the text, just kind of think about this. What are we doing here this morning? Why are we here? Why do we come here week after week after week after month after month, year after year? Why do we come here? We sing, we pray, we read the Bible together, we listen to sermons, close in prayer, go home.

I wonder sometimes, though, if we’re not prone to be a little bit similar in some ways to these two disciples, with some bits and pieces of Bible in our minds, different stories, different doctrines, different words, scattered thoughts, varying and differing, diverging even sometimes, motivations in our hearts about why we come here, what we’re doing here, what this is all about.

And in that frame of mind, when we’re not really focused on what it is we’re doing here, why we’re doing this, why you would get up on a Sunday morning, come here, sit down, listen to the likes of me?

But in that frame of mind, we can very easily get distracted during the week. We could become involved in so many things that don’t really ultimately matter. We can start looking to ourselves and our own thinking, our own thoughts. Maybe if we have a question, we run to the Internet and type in some words and whatever AI feeds us, rather than occupying ourselves chiefly with the “things concerning himself.”

And in that frame of mind that does not have Christ and his Word, God and his Word, God and his priorities, God and his intentions, God and his telos, his great aim, his eschatology, his plan for the earth; when we don’t have those things in our mind and shaping our perspective and framing our days and framing our thoughts, we can very easily drift, can’t we? We can allow doubts to fester and grow. We could become discouraged, sorrowful. Our hearts are very easily upset, unnecessarily troubled.

If you look closely at the text this morning, if you’ll read along with me, listen prayerfully, maybe the text will become for you something of a mirror, that though it’s the image on the pages, here, of two discouraged disciples, confused, minds going everywhere, all kinds of things they’re discussing and debating and troubled about, they’re walking on the Emmaus road, but maybe that image reflects your own face back to you. Maybe that’s what you’ll see. Show you maybe your own heart. Sometimes your heart can be all over the place, your thoughts distracted, your mind drifting.

But if you’ll follow the risen Lord Jesus where he would lead you, as he does for these two disciples in the text, and it’s very clear where he leads them, isn’t it? Well, if you follow him, he’ll show you the way back. It’s not by way of some extraordinary experience. It’s not by way some subjective impression. It’s not by you navel-gazing, getting more into yourself, in touch with your thoughts, really discerning your feelings.

It’s really not internal to you at all. It’s external. It’s about the regular practice of reading God’s Word. It’s about hearing a voice that you, that is not inside of you, but a voice that is above you, beyond you, that’s transcendent, eternal, infinite, from an infinite mind. That’s the voice you need. That’s salvation for us. That’s redemption. That’s glory: its majesty, its beauty.

Too often we spend our time hearing many other divergent voices. We’re actually attracted to them. We want to click on the next thing and see what it is that that person has to say. Well, how did that person react? Well, what’s going on there? Oh, I wonder what that interesting movie is. Wonder what that show is. Wonder who’s been creative next. Who will allow me to passively just sit and watch, not think too hard? That’s what we sometimes want.

It’s not what we need. It’s not at all what we need. I want to see you at the end of this sermon go out of here with a mind oriented around the Word of God. I want you to be dedicated, devoted, and if you need to repent, repent, but set a trajectory to seek and find your Savior and your Redeemer, who is here in the pages of Scripture.

I want him to be your chief love. I want you to know him. I want you to love him. I want you to worship him. I want you to find all your satisfaction and contentment and joy in him and in nothing else, not your spouse, not your children and grandchildren.

As wonderful as those gifts are, all gifts of God, even family, are intended to point your eyes up toward heaven to see the God who gave those gifts. Do not worship the gifts. Do not give yourselves to the gifts. Give yourself to the giver.

The great irony of the text before us, which really runs from the beginning to the end of this Emmaus road encounter, is that these disciples are mourning the loss of a Savior who is right beside them the whole time. Isn’t that kind of funny? Walking beside them, listening to them talk, hearing their conversation, and they’re sad and they’re discouraged.

We kind of sympathize with them. But look, there’s no need for that. They feel lost, forlorn, forsaken. But are they? No. He’s there. He’s been with them the whole time. In fact, even before he appeared on the road, he was with them. It didn’t take his physical presence, standing beside them, walking with them, to be with them. He’s been with them the entire time. He’s never left.

They’re anxious that their redemption hopes that are centered on him are kind of lost in the grim reality of his death. Facts is facts. I saw him die, buried in the tomb. They have little hope of seeing him alive again. In spite of the reports of an empty tomb, in spite of the reports about that angelic visitation, the message of resurrection that they’d heard earlier that morning, they’re still not, they’re still not lifted in their souls.

But again, those hopes that they have in him are, they really were never in jeopardy. There was never any reason for their hearts to be troubled, for doubts to arise, even when Jesus is physically absent from them, as he is from us, because as he will show them, the Word of God has always been there.

The Word of God has never changed. The Word of God has always been true and reliable and trustworthy and steadfast. And everything that it predicted that was fulfilled in the Old Testament provides proof and evidence that God is faithful, that when he says something, it happens.

So Jesus comes to these two discouraged men. He wants to minister to their souls. He has to be looking at them like, you know, like when you go out, take your family out to maybe a, a stream or something like that, and you’re kind of wading in the water. And one of your kids, your little ones, you know, he’s just a little, little tyke, little guy, chubby little legs. But he drifts out a little bit further into the stream, he kind of falls over a little bit, right? And he’s flailing and screaming and terrified until you just say, Hey, stand up. He stands up. All is well.

That’s what Jesus is doing here. He’s like a father to lift his children up and put them on their feet again, wipe their nose, wipe away their tears. There, there. It’s okay. He does that by anchoring their hope deeply in the Scripture.

That’s how they will see him, when their hope is anchored deeply in the Scripture. That’s how he will abide with them, when their hope is anchored deeply in the Scripture. That’s how they will abide with him as well when they are anchored deeply in the Scripture.

I don’t mean some superficial reading, some take-it-or-leave-it understanding. This is not your, you know, Our Daily Bread devotions. This is real, deep reading, thorough reading, thorough understanding. It’s the same thing for us today, beloved. We need to anchor our hope, our hope deeply in the Scripture, don’t we?

So we’re going to go along with these two disciples. We’re going to walk with them on their journey, not a journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, but from discouragement to hope, doubt to faith, from failing to recognize the Lord at all to seeing him and rejoicing in him. That’s the journey we’re going to take, all right?

Several points today as we join these two men on their journey, starting in doubt. There’s two points about doubt: doubting redemption and doubting resurrection. Then we will end on this high point of confidence and certainty, believing revelation, believing in revelation.

But first, we’ve got to go down before we go up. So number one, doubting redemption. Doubting redemption. Jesus asked these men in verse 17 what they were discussing along the way. And as I mentioned, he is forcing them to clarity by having them summarize their concerns and kind of distill a myriad of disparate thoughts to boil down the issues that they are discussing into their bare essence.

So as they summarize for Jesus what they’re discussing, they clarify what’s troubling them. They get it out. They put it out there in their their speech. First, and chiefly, it’s the hope of redemption in Jesus for them that appears to be in jeopardy. That’s verses 19-21. These guys are struggling with doubts about that.

I’m going to start reading again, but I’m going to go back to verse 15 and read through verse 21. “It happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself approached and was going with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are these words that you’re discussing with one another as you’re walking?’ They stood still, looking sad. And one of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’

“And they said to him, ‘The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.’”

The answer to this stranger’s question, they summarize the subject of their conversation in verse 19. They’re talking about “the things about Jesus the Nazarene,” “Jesus the Nazarene, who was,” and note the past tense, there, “who was a mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people.”

In that sentence, there, they give his name, distinguish him by his town. They affirm what he was, and they summarize his significance. Jesus the Nazarene, that distinguishes Jesus, this Jesus from every other Jesus, which was a very common name among the Jews. You know Jesus means, it’s the Hellenized form of Yeshua, Joshua, the Lord Saves is what it means.

Joshua’s famous in the nation’s history for saving Israel, completing the redemption of Israel. There was the exodus from Egypt that Moses accomplished, but then there was the full salvation of Israel entering into the Promised Land, right? Joshua: the Lord saves.

Again, note the irony. They’re telling Jesus the Nazarene about Jesus the Nazarene, and they’re wringing their hands about his failure to redeem Israel in verse 21, when this is exactly what he has done. It’s exactly what he’s done. He’s lived up fully to his name.

They describe Jesus as “a mighty prophet in deed and word,” which sounds, we know from our own fully realized Christology, we read the Bible in light of the entire New Testament, and we see that this Jesus is more than a mighty prophet. Sounds far too low of an estimation of him based on what we know.

But remember Peter’s confession about Jesus in Luke 9:20, that Jesus is none other than the Christ of God? Peter said that. But then keep in mind that immediately after he made that good confession, Jesus commanded Peter and the Twelve not to tell anybody.

Okay, so that’s even within the, the circle of disciples, the wider disciples. That’s, that’s still not fully known and unpacked and realized. Since Cleopas and his companion are more recent disciples, very likely they held Jesus in the highest esteem that they were able to at this point anyway in the narrative, at this point in, in redemption history.

So if, as they are thinking that this Jesus is, is maybe still dead, if that’s what they think, could they have had any higher view of Jesus than this, than the one they’ve given us in Scripture, there, right there in that sentence?

In fact, had more time passed, if they’d had more time to reflect on this failure of Jesus to rise from the dead, to remain in the grave, they would have come to Paul’s hypothesis of a world without Christ’s bodily resurrection. He says this, Paul does, in 1 Corinthians 15, starting at verse 14, “If Christ has not been raised, well then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain.

“And moreover, we’re even found to be false witnesses of God because we bore witness against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. Or if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You’re still in your sins,” dot, dot, dot.

We would also add that if Christ promised that he would rise on the third day, and he did, what does that make him? A mighty prophet in deed and word? Not that word. If we find one hole in his arguments, one errant word, one mistake, everything comes crumbling down. He’s not to be believed. In fact, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priests, they’re all righteous in putting that man to death as a blasphemer because as we can see, he’s perpetrated the greatest scandal, a false religion on the entire planet for two millennia now. But as Paul said, “Christ has been raised.” He has been raised.

At this point, these men are holding Jesus in the highest esteem that they can at this point. A mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God, not only in the sight of God, not only sinless in the sight of God, but perfectly righteous in the sight of God and in the sight of all the people as well.

The people, they were astonished at Jesus constantly. He astounded them by his teaching, by his presence. It says in Mark 37 that they retorted, “‘He has done all things well.’” No one could dispute the power that was evident in his miracles, even among his enemies, no one denied his miracles.

He demonstrated power as he kind of recounts to the disciples of John, who, John the Baptist, he’s jailed and imprisoned, in Herod’s prison, he sends his disciples to Jesus to say, “Hey, are you the coming one? Are we supposed to look for someone else?” I didn’t think I’d be in prison.

And Jesus told them to go tell John that he has had victory and power over every single malady that afflicts the human race. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up. He’s got power over every malady, even death itself. He’s got power over the fish of the sea, on two occasions directing fish into the nets of his men, overwhelming their nets, of these seasoned fishermen.

On one occasion, I love this story, where, where Peter’s asking about whether or not they should pay the temple tax. After he explains and teaches Peter through that, he’s like, “Well, now, go down to Galilee. The first fish you catch down there, open its mouth and you’re going to find a coin that’s going to pay for my temple tax and yours. Just go ahead and do that so we don’t offend them.”

How did he do that? He’s got power over the impersonal, inanimate forces of nature, commands the wind to stop blowing, the waves to stop raging. He’s got power over malevolent spirits of the dark world, casting out demons with a word over and over. They are terrified of him. They know that he has the power of judgment over them, to cast them into the abyss to await their own judgment day.

He’s a mighty prophet as well in his words. The chief priests sent officers at one point to arrest Jesus. He was there at one of the feasts, John chapter 7. These officers, these arresting officers went out there, heard him, saw him.

They came back empty-handed, and they were asked, “Why didn’t you bring him?” They said, Whoa, okay, guys, “never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” Big, burly officers, lots of swords, sharp things, you can’t take one guy into your custody? It’s his words. Pushed them back. He spoke with authority.

How unlike he is to an alarming number of pastors in our own day who are plagiarizing their content, who are plugging in concepts and themes into artificial intelligence and using large language models to generate their sermons. And then they’re preaching those to unwitting and unsuspecting, trusting congregations, and they think, Wow, well done! Something’s improved in his preaching ever since AI came out.

Jesus never relied on the work of other people at all. He knew, he was familiar with the rabbinical scholars, but he didn’t read and regurgitate their opinions. He didn’t fill his sermons with footnotes, like I need to do. He didn’t do that.

He didn’t engage in any of their debates. He transcended all of them. And he taught. Matthew 7:29 says, “He was teaching them as one having authority, not as their scribes,” their scribes, who quoted one another, debated one another.

The living Word of God has both an essential and a filial relationship with the God of the Word. The God who spoke the Word, revealed the Word, the Spirit who gave the Word, that God is his father, he is his son. He is one essence with the father by his deity, and he is son of the father by generation, affiliation.

That’s how he talked, like he knew the guy. That’s how he taught. That’s how he preached. He came out of the inter-Trinitarian councils of heaven, and declared, and decreed, and preached, and spoke, and confronted, and convicted.

No one could accuse him, no one could condemn him, correct him, contradict him. No one could answer his arguments. We saw that as we studied Luke 20, right? Jesus is answering every single challenge that came at him in the temple, and in the end, they did not dare to ask him any more questions.

Jesus turned the tables and asked them, the Jewish religious establishment, asked them a question, “‘How is it that they say the Christ is David’s Son? After all, David calls him “Lord,” so how is he his Son?’” They had nothing to say, nothing.

His convictions were not just spoken, delivered in oratory, in preaching, in teaching. They weren’t just verbal. His convictions were lived out publicly and privately. They were known by all, whether those in heaven or those on earth. He was a mighty prophet, in deed and word, in the sight of God, and in the sight of all the people.

And yet, according to the inexplicable mystery of sin, the envious murderous spirit of greed, idolatrous love of money, the chief priests and our rulers, our rulers delivered him up to the sentence of death and crucified him.

That little three-letter word, that first-person possessive pronoun, the word “our,” reveals, I think, the extreme sorrow in their hearts. Remember, these two are Greek proselytes. That means that Cleopas, probably his unnamed companion, too, they had converted from their native pagan religion to trust in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

These men were following Mosaic law. They were coming to the temple, bringing sacrifices, sacrifices for guilt, guilt offerings, thank offerings. They were, they were engaged in the whole worship system. They found comfort in the piety of David, who wrote the Psalms. They learned from the wisdom of Solomon in his writings. They heeded the warnings and the admonitions and the history in the former and the latter prophets.

 And then comes this Jesus the Nazarene, and by the Spirit’s work, the Spirit drives them to this Jesus the Nazarene, the one from Nazareth. They start following him as disciples. They hear him speaking in the language of the Bibles that they’ve been reading and learning from.

They joined the small band of Apostles and disciples, and they probably started with Jesus’ Judean mission. It’s kind of recorded at the start of that in Luke chapter 10. Remember when Jesus sent out seventy-two evangelists to go throughout the cities of Judea to announce his coming as he’s making his way to Jerusalem, told them to go and preach the gospel and herald his kingdom, see what villages are receptive and what are rejecting so that he can go to the receptive ones, spend his time there, bypass the rejecting villages.

They’ve probably been converted some time in that time frame. These men having witnessed his deeds, and having heard his words, having believed in him, it seemed to them as they walked with him and talked with him and were part of this whole upswing journey to Jerusalem, nothing can prevent the arrival of the kingdom of God. It’s unstoppable! Restoration promises are going to be fulfilled, the elevation of Israel to its rightful place.

Until these Jewish leaders, though they had been bested at every single point by Jesus, though they’ve been exposed as hypocrites and frauds, though they were on the same level as robbers who turned the temple of God into a robber’s den, until those guys murdered him, and now, though, all the plans come crashing down.

Can you imagine what Cleopas and his companion are thinking? Now that Jesus is dead, are we once again under the thumb of those guys? Those are our leaders now? We’ve got to go back to their ineffectual, failed leadership, leadership that’s abusive, heavy-handed, hypocritical shepherding, really kind of designed to take all my money, guilt me into giving more?

Again, note the sorrowful tone in verse 21. Hear the pronouns, there, “‘But we, we ourselves, we were, we were hoping it was he, he himself who was going to redeem Israel.” They’re so disappointed, crestfallen.

At the same time that you hear the sadness in that sentence, there’s also, I think, a note of hopefulness, there, ever so slight, but it’s there in what they said. We find a glimmer of hope, believe it or not, in the verb tenses. Grammar, so useful. Can I encourage you to be good students of language and grammar because it really, it really matters. A small flame of faith still being, seems to be burning in their hearts like a, like in Isaiah 42, like a dimly burning wick that he will not quench.

Verse 21, “We were hoping.” That’s an imperfect tense. It shows continual action in the past, so it, they have an abiding hope that they’re referring to that they had in the past. “We were hoping.” That hope is kept alive, only just, but it’s kept alive by an ongoing faith, in the present tense.

It’s not, as our translation renders it, “It was he who was going to redeem Israel,” but rather, that’s actually present tense, “It is he who is going to be redeeming Israel.” Interesting. Those present-tense verbs, because of those, those pronouns are even more emphatic. You heard when I read and I emphasized them, it’s as if to say that, in spite of the fact that our leaders put Jesus to death, we were hoping that it is he who is going to redeem Israel.

Even now, the third day is not fully over. Many in Israel thought redemption meant God is going to deliver Israel from political oppression, military occupation, most recently being the iron hand of Roman governance.

More spiritually minded Jews, they realized and recognized that redemption had to go deeper than political deliverance. So they longed for true spiritual leadership in their nation, righteous, righteousness to reign from both throne and temple, for God to shepherd his people by his properly called, anointed, qualified, gifted, God-fearing leaders.

It’s kind of what every Christian hopes for, too; God-fearing pastors, God-fearing elders, God-fearing deacons, ones that are exemplary, there’s no hidden things in their lives. They’re gonna find them scandalizing your church ten years down the road. It’s what we all long for. We long for that in our political scene, too. People that we can really trust.

But more spiritually minded Jews recognize there’s gotta be something done to the heart. There’s gotta be something that changes, here, because we can’t just keep on repeating the same things we’ve always done and expect different results.

What these men did not clearly see is that the redemption of God in Christ wouldn’t start from the outside and work its way inside, as former redemptions were from Egypt and from Babylon. The redemption of God in Christ had to start on the inside. It had to start from the heart and then work its way to the outside to transform people from the inside out.

That’s why any emphasis on political action, it’s not wrong for us to be politically active, vote and put some of our members on school boards and town councils and county seats and all those things. Vote them in the right place.

But any political action that fails to see the deep spiritual transformation-regeneration that takes place is doomed to fail and is actually a terrible distraction, distractions we’ve lived through for about 50 years in this country in the evangelical world.

I want you to be dedicated, devoted, and if you need to repent, repent, but set a trajectory to seek and find your Savior and your Redeemer, who is here in the pages of Scripture.” Travis Allen

We keep thinking that putting the right laws in place and putting the right people in office, it’s going to change everything. It’s going to make the gospel more acceptable. I know God has power on his Word, but you know what? We need our freedom of religion. We got to protect that at all costs. Otherwise we can’t do this.

Ask the Christians of the second and third centuries. They did this. Yeah, they went to jail for it, but they did this. They worshipped God, preached his Word. Yeah, they were chucked into the arena, eaten by lions and rejoiced for it. What does that?

The Word of God is not hindered. It’s unchained. It’s powerful. Redemption is like that. It’s got to start from the inside, in the heart, and work its way to the outside, where it will transform individuals and families. And when families are transformed, it transforms society and culture. That transforms politics and religion in the entire nation.

They realize that: redeemed, transformed nation of Israel. God starts in the heart and works his redemption from the heart outward, and he brings redemption to all the nations through Israel, to all the nations for his glory. None of that happens apart from individual redemption, apart from heart regeneration, apart from life transformation.

So Cleopas and his companion, Greek proselytes to the Jewish faith, disciples of Jesus Christ, why did they fail to discern the redemption that was needed, here, which Jesus provided when he died on the cross for sins? Why did they fail to see that?

It’s not as if he wasn’t clear. It’s not as if the Bible hadn’t said it. His death had rattled them, yeah, shook their confidence in God’s redemption through that man, Jesus. Is it, is it this man? It’s like they’re asking the same question John the Baptist asked, Or is it you we’re looking for? Were we kind of mistaken? You’re like Part 1, and then there’s a Part 2?

At the end of verse 21, there’s an itch they can’t quite scratch in the brain, something they can’t quite figure out. “Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.” What are they talking about? They’re talking about his predictions. Predictions circulated among Jesus’ disciples since Galilee. Luke 9:22, “‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, be raised up,” and there it is, “on the third day.”

You see why they’re thinking is in a bind? It’s the third day. They believe he’s still dead, and so they’re without hope. Let me restate that and put the emphasis where it needs to be. They believe he’s still dead. They are not believing that he is alive as he said he’d be on the third day. Do they know that he’s dead on the third day? No, they do not know that. They don’t see it, but the evidence is standing right in front of them, talking to them, walking with them. They believe he’s dead, contrary to what he told them, contrary to reliable witnesses, and contrary to the live body walking next to them on the road.

More prominent in their minds at this particular moment is not the prophet of verse 19, “who is mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and men.” No, in their doubting, struggling, confused minds, it’s those who killed him who are prominent. The chief priests, the rulers of verse 20, in their minds, those guys have the upper hand.

Why is that? Because in a fallen world ruled by death, death is how we tend to think. Death seems to be the ultimate power, not life. Death is more powerful to them than life. The Word of God for them has been set aside. It’s been subjected to their subjective feelings. It’s been subjected to their erroneous interpretations of their experience. This whole thing needs to be flipped around into its proper orientation, doesn’t it? They got everything backwards and upside down.

And believe me, beloved, the more we think biblically, doctrinally, theologically, we’re the ones who are thinking rightly. We don’t do that by our own power. I don’t, I’m not bragging, boasting for us. We boast in our God.

But when he teaches us his Word, when he illuminates the Word to us, when he illuminates the truth to us, we’re thinking right. It’s the rest of the world around us that is upside down, backwards, and stupid. And I know this sounds a little bit, like, churlish, but they think they’re so smart, and they think you’re so dumb. They think they’re so clued in and so above you. Beloved, they’re, they’re fools and the more they reject God, the more foolish they are. To not think according to the Scripture is the dumbest thing in the world.

And we’d be right there along with them if God hadn’t been kind to us and opened our eyes to the truth. We’re no better. But God has been gracious. God’s been gracious to these two guys on the road to Emmaus. Jesus has come alongside to show him how gracious God will be.

And that takes us to our second point, verses 22-24, where they’re doubting resurrection. First, they’re doubting redemption; now they’re doubting resurrection. As I said, they, they don’t know that Jesus is dead on the third day. They simply believe he’s dead, and it’s contrary to what he told them, contrary to evidence standing right beside him, also contrary to reliable witnesses who spoke to them.

Verse 22, “‘But also some women among us astounded us when they were at the tomb early in the morning and not finding his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.’” “‘Some of those who were with us,’” that’s a reference to Peter and John as recorded in John chapter 20, “‘Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, found it just exactly as the women also said, but him they did not see.’”

Again, “him they did not see.” Ironic. And I can imagine them looking directly at him when they said it. “Him they did not see.” Jesus is, like, Hey, look a little harder.

See what’s happening? They’re oriented negatively to what they do not know by sense perception. Seeing Jesus alive with their physical eyes does not help them when their hearts are not inclined to believe it. Their hearts are assaulted with doubts. Their sorrowing confuses their minds. It leads to despair.

But there is no need for sorrow, is there? The problem is, they’ve come to doubting what Jesus said. Do they have any reason to doubt him? Do they have any justification for doubting Jesus’ words and setting them aside?

Let’s consider this. They tell us about several reports here, don’t they? There’s the report of the women. There’s the report in their report of what the angels had told them. There’s the report of “some who are with us,” Peter and John.

At first, as Luke tells us in verse 11, these two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they are among those who thought the women were talking nonsense. The word leros, as I mentioned to you, is like they’re hearing, they’re hearing these women report all this stuff about the tomb and the visit to the tomb, empty tomb, angels and all that. It’s just fairy tales to them, born out of unrestrained emotion, hysterical frame of mind. They didn’t believe it.

A little later on, and when, then with the confirmation of Peter and John, now they’re walking on the road. They’ve got a little distance between that room and where they are now, out in the open air. Maybe it’s the fresh air that did them some good and cleared their minds, but they’re starting to soften their initial judgment a bit, modify their position.

They don’t say that the women are leros, hysterical. Now they just say, “The women astounded us.” It’s a dynamic well-known between men and women. Astounding. But the word astounded, existemi, amazed us, confused us. Again, dynamic between men and women.

But here they’re softening their judgment a little bit, aren’t they? They are still trying, by the way, to blame the women for their confusion. It’s not the women who confuse them. They are to blame. They are to blame. Because if they had considered all that the women had told them, they’d have an entirely opposite frame of mind.

Notice, remember when they told Jesus about the reports of the women, what we just read verses 22-24? What have they left out in their report?

Go back to Luke 24:4, starting in verse 4, “It happened that while these women were perplexed about this,” this empty tombstone rolled away, they don’t find the body of Jesus while they’re perplexed about it, “behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing, and when the women were terrified, bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He’s not here. He has risen.’”

Thus far they have reported, haven’t they? What did they fail to report? “‘Remember how he spoke to you,’” the angels tell the women, “‘while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again?’” They remembered his words.

So in recounting and giving their summary of what the women said to Jesus, why did the two disciples leave that out? They got the empty tomb, they got the sight of the angels, they got the message of resurrection. Those parts of the message are transmitted just fine. Why not the part about what Jesus said in Galilee?

We’d be wrong to assume the women failed to tell them. We read in verse 9, they went back and reported, quote, “all these things.” This is not on the women, as if they failed in their duty, as if they neglected to give a full report. The problem is clearly some of the eleven. All the rest who heard him, or at least these two disciples, thought the main message is “He is risen,” and the reminder of Jesus’ predictions in Galilee are simply augmenting material and not the main point.

Those words that he taught them in Galilee are part of the main point. They are what interprets his body not being there in the tomb. The angels, one of the women, the eleven, all the rest, to remember Jesus’ predictions, remember what he said, his words. Again, I know I’m a Greek and Hebrew nerd. The grammar, syntax, lexical information is so important. The words matter. How they’re arranged matters. Understanding, communication matters. Remember Jesus’ predictions, believe them, gain assurance, and not by sight, but by faith in the truth.

What Jesus said to them while he was still in Galilee made its rounds among the disciples, and Jesus repeated it several times on his journey to the cross. But he said in Luke 9:22, “‘The Son of Man must suffer many things.’” Did that happen? Jesus said, “‘The Son of Man must be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes.’” Did that happen? He said, “‘The Son of Man must be killed.’” How are we doing on our batting average?

If you continue then down that line of reasoning, why not also accept the final prediction in that list, the most joyful one, that Jesus is to be raised up on the third day? Why the sorrow? Should not these men be leaping with joy, excited anticipation, hopping around like little kids on the path? In fact, why would they even leave Jerusalem in the first place?

Nope, they’re slinking back home to Emmaus. They’re going entirely in the wrong direction because they’re waffling in their faith, because they’re giving in to doubting. They trusted him enough to hope in his redemption as they just rehearsed several predictions of his, now fulfilled. But these men failed to trust him to the very end. Doubt set their expectations about the future, not faith. They’re oriented toward the future in sorrow, not joy.

How many of you are like that? When some new idea, excited thought comes to you, and you’re kind of the one who kind of shoves it down, ignores it, nah, come up with all the reasons why you can’t, why it can’t be done. Nah, people aren’t going to like that. Nah, that’s not enough. Don’t have enough money to do that. No, just, this is, this is just Greeley. Greeley people aren’t kind of into that kind of stuff like Bible teaching.

Faith, trust, hope, seeing the power of God working through his Word, it sets our orientation. There’s great excitement and joy about what God can accomplish beyond all you can ask or imagine or think.

Beloved, that’s how we need to think as a church because we have a God who’s all-powerful and loves to exalt his Word to his name, and he loves to exalt his Christ. And anybody who’s preaching Christ, he wants to give them a wider berth, wider platform, wider voice. That’s what you need to do in your life, and rejoice.

What’s prevented these men from recognizing Jesus? What’s affected their physical sense perception? Their unbelieving hearts, minds that refuse to accept what their eyes are telling them, the one that their eyes are showing them? The eyes are working just fine, all the visual perception working, the information traveling down their optic nerve into their brains.

But you know what’s affecting and afflicting their brains? It’s dark unbelief that creeps up into the brain and muddles it, restricts the blood vessels and says, Nope, that’s not Jesus. They can’t see him for who he is because they’re not believing.

They interpret this man on the road to be not Jesus risen from the dead, but just some stranger. Some stranger. The only one visiting Jerusalem, verse 18, who’s ignorant of the things that had just happened there. Even they’re incredulous about that. How could you be the only one?

It turns out he’s not. Again, evidence is not the problem, It’s the interpretation of the evidence. The women, verse 23, go to the tomb, do not find the body. The men of verse 24 find the same thing. The empty tomb is the evidence, and to interpret the evidence God sent his angels, as verse 23 says, and the women had seen.

But notice what they report. Not that they had seen angels, but they had seen what? “A vision of angels.” Hmm, that’s a little twist, isn’t it? What did they see? Actual angels or just a vision of angels? Which is it?

If they’re going to twist the actual presence of God’s angels and sent to interpret the evidence to them as an apparition or a vision, how ought we to understand the men of verse 24, which says the men did not see Jesus? Which interpretation are we to believe? The testimony of God sent through his angels or the testimony of men who are earthbound and unbelieving?

Nothing wrong, I just want to add, nothing wrong with using our physical senses to go and investigate, seek things out, examine evidence. In fact, I’m using my physical sense of sight right now to read my Bible, read my notes, to see all of you, though fuzzy, through my glasses. But I’m using my physical senses right now. There’s nothing wrong with using our physical senses in the way God intended them.

But our physical senses have to be informed by our principles of interpretation and our principles of interpretation come from the orientation of our hearts, whether believing or unbelieving. You know what? I believe the things I’m telling you. I believe them.

Brute facts, evidence alone will not lead us into truth because all evidence is interpreted evidence. All evidence is interpreted evidence, whether it’s the evidence in the geological record or the evidence in the stars of the sky, or the evidence in relationships. All evidence is interpreted evidence, and interpretation is grounded in presuppositions, assumptions, base grounding assumptions. Whether they’re right or wrong, those assumptions are principles of interpretation that we use to weigh evidence, to sort and sift evidence, to organize evidence, examine it, come to conclusions.

So had these two men listened carefully to the women, had they heeded the need to remember what Jesus had said in Galilee, that “the Son of Man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day rise again,” if they had believed that, what weight would believing presuppositions have on their eyes, on interpreting the evidence of the empty tomb?

Verse 16, “Their eyes were prevented from recognizing him” because they’re not believing, because they’re weak in faith. They allow doubts to grow and to fester. Standing right in front of the one that they so dearly long to see alive and still not recognizing him. Boy, that’s tragic, isn’t it? Kind of laughable at this point, but, “Alas, him they did not see.” Deep sigh.

If you’re doubting and you’re prone to doubt, maybe prone to kind of a darkness of mind, maybe a Debbie Downer, Eeyore kind of a vibe you got going on in your soul, but don’t let that dominate your thinking.

If you’re doubting anything in God’s plan of redemption, if you’re doubting your own justification, where do you go? Inside? No. Outside, to the Scripture. See what Jesus teaches, see what God teaches, see what the record of Scripture, the written record in black and white that does not change, see what that says.

If you’re doubting anything about your sanctification, I got this, I got this sin, it just will not go away. I don’t think I’ll ever be delivered from it, and I, I’m just going to continue to disappoint people and let people down and hurt people. This is never going to change. Stop it. It’s not true.

Your God did not save you to show himself powerless for you. God saved you to show his power in saving you, redeeming you, sanctifying you, glorifying you. You will overcome all sin. You will. And there is no sin that afflicts you, “no temptation has come upon you except which is common to man, and God is faithful; he’ll always provide the way of escape so you can bear up under it.”

You can deal with temptation. You can resist it. You can stand firm. You can put on the full armor of God. We got a lot of instruction on that. Trust your God. If you’re doubting the resurrection of Jesus, that’s at the very heart of the Gospel, like the Corinthian church was. There were elements within that church denying bodily resurrection itself, which negated the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Why? Why were they doing that? Because philosophical presuppositions had crept into their congregation through them walking in the door, because they they lived and breathed and had their being in the world and they came in with those assumptions. They started passing those things around and cratering the faith of those who did believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. And Paul had to include that in his letter in a huge section saying, Stop that! You can’t believe the Greeks. They are not the fountain of all wisdom. God is. Go back to his Word.

To get one thing out of this message, write this down: Go back to his Word. And then stick around because I have more to say.

Final point, verses 25-27, and we’re going to expand this next time. So this is not a full point. But number three: believing revelation. This is the way back, believing God’s revelation, believing revelation, his special revelation, the truth of the Word. “He said to them. ‘O, foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.’” Note the call back to verse 19. Is Jesus a mighty prophet or not? Well, if he is, why haven’t you believed him and the others?

He goes on. “‘Was it not necessary?’” Again, that little, short little dei verb that means necessary, divinely necessary, decreed of God. “‘Was it not necessary for the Christ to’” do two things, “‘suffer these things and enter into his glory?’” If he has suffered these things, as he has, he will enter into his glory as well. And I’m standing with you. You who long for Israel’s redemption, have you not read what God’s redemption is all about? Do you not know what this whole thing, the suffering, what it was for?

As far back as Moses, God said redemption starts with heart circumcision. Deuteronomy 36, 30 verse 6, “YAHWEH, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, your descendants, to love YAHWEH your God with all your heart, with all your soul, so that you may live.”

That’s Israel’s redemption ever since Moses. Without a circumcised heart, cutting off, removing the old, judging sin, removing uncleanness from the heart, without a circumcised heart, Israel’s going to keep on sinning, resulting in the same condemnation because God doesn’t change, the offense of sin doesn’t change. It leads to the same divine judgment.

In the progress of revelation, God revealed the path forward to his redemption, internal transformation, what we know as regeneration, that’s promised in the New Covenant. You can turn there if you want to. I’m going to turn to Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, so go ahead and turn there if you’d like to, but write them down at least.

Jeremiah 31:31-34, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares YAHWEH,’ when I’ll cut a new covenant with the,” house of Israel, with the house of, “house of Judah. It’s not like the covenant which I cut with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, and yet I was a husband to them,’ declares Yahweh.

“‘But this is the covenant which I’ll cut with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares YAHWEH. ‘I’ll put my law within them, and on their heart I will write my law. I’ll be their God, they shall be my people, and they’ll not teach anymore each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know Yahweh,” for they’ll all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares Yahweh. ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’”

How will they know the Lord from the least to the greatest? What guarantees longevity in a new spiritual trajectory and a steadfastness in faithfulness? That’s Ezekiel 36, starting in verse 25, “‘I’m going to bring you into your own land,’ he says to Israel. ‘But then,’” here’s individual regeneration, “‘I’ll sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I’ll cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols.

“‘Moreover, I’ll give you a new heart. I’ll put a new spirit within you. And I’ll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I’ll put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to do my judgments.’”

Again, their view, at that time, of what redemption entailed was so low. It was so superficial. They thought political institutions, religious institutions, those are the things that stay. They looked at that temple on the mount and they said, Indestructible! In just 40 years from then, they’re going to see, oh no, it’s not.

Mere political redemption, deliverance from Roman oppression, just another temporary fix. Religious redemption, even, deposing false spiritual leadership, installing called, qualified new spiritual leadership, that, too, temporary. Death ends the ministry of even the best of men, as we’ve been losing a lot of our heroes lately, haven’t we?

No, it’s spiritual redemption that’s needed, starting in the heart, to execute full and final justice on sin, to ensure a lasting righteousness never to be undone. This is the redemption that they need most. This is the redemption, though, that Jesus secured by his death on the cross, and they didn’t recognize it. Why not?

I mentioned earlier the irony in the text is that the risen Lord Jesus is walking with these men while they sorrow over not seeing the risen Lord Jesus. But there’s a deeper irony embedded in the text, embedded in the subtext here, a latent theme that Jesus is exposing for us, here.

Just as the risen, yet unrecognized, Jesus is with them, he’s walking with them, talking with them, and yet they don’t perceive it, he’s ministering to the deepest need of their souls, the living, incarnate Word takes them to the written Word of God, which has likewise always been with them, has never left them, has never changed.

God saved you to show his power in saving you, redeeming you, sanctifying you, glorifying you. You will overcome all sin.” Travis Allen

What’s the problem? The problem is they’re not reading it, they’re not looking at it, they’re not studying it. They’re saying, I got enough. They’ve neglected their Bibles. They’ve taken the Scripture for granted. They’ve failed to read it deeply, meditate on it fully, reflect on its truths, develop his doctrinal, theological implications, live thereby.

Too many professing Christians are like that. They treat God’s Word as an optional thing. Biblical understanding is maybe a nicety, but as long as it comes easy. Don’t make me work for it. Don’t make me seek the truth like silver or search for it as for hidden treasures, like Solomon told his son to do. Nah, I just want it to be easy.

Friends, if you treat Scripture shabbily, like that, then sadly, and by the way, unnecessarily, you will live a shabby, impoverished life of mediocrity. And if after I’ve just delivered a warning like I just did, you continue neglecting Scripture, the problems of your attitude may be far deeper and more eternally dire than you realize.

On the other hand, if you give Scripture its proper place in your life, and you abide in God’s Word, so that God’s Word abides in you, and richly, notice the effects of biblical understanding in verse 32 in the testimony of these men. “‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the Scriptures to us?’”

Is that your experience as your pastors and your teachers explain the Scriptures to you? You say, Hey, it might be if my teacher was Jesus, if my pastor was Jesus. Fair enough. But then again, is he not your pastor? Is he not your Good Shepherd, the one who, according to Ephesians 4:11, “gave you pastors and teachers”? Weak though we are, imperfect as we are, did he not give us to you to equip you for the ministry through our ministry of the Word of God to you?

Beloved, don’t take the treasure of Scripture for granted by neglecting to read and study it for yourself. Don’t doze off during sermons. Don’t let your mind wander. You’ve got to discipline yourself for the sake of godliness, and that means discipline your mind to learn. You say, Oh, but I’m not a reader. I’m more of a visual guy. Well, become one because God didn’t give you a video. He gave you printed text and tells you to read it.

Don’t blame the messenger. He’s the Good Shepherd; I’m an under-shepherd. I’m just doing what he’s told me. He didn’t verbally come into my office and say, okay? But don’t take it for granted.

If your pastor or a pastor in your church or an elder is lagging behind in zeal or knowledge, man, pray for us. We need your prayers. Encourage us in our labors, make our calling a joy by being obedient to biblical instruction, by letting us know how teaching here has improved your sanctification, led to your repentance, convicted your soul, how you’re living differently because of it.

And I realize I’m saying these things right now at the risk of sounding self-serving, but I could tell you in humble sincerity, as God is my witness, I have no self-centered aim at all, no ulterior motive. I don’t need more pats on the back. I only want to see your confidence in believing, your joy in obedient faith, and your progress and salvation. I want to see you fruitful and joyful and happy in the Lord. And that will only come if you do what I’m saying. Read the Bible, study it for yourself, be good students, be Bereans in the text.

Jesus opened the Scriptures to these men, and by the way, not New Testament stuff, Old Testament Scripture. And he interpreted these things to them concerning himself, and they rejoiced in it, right? And what did they rejoice in? A deep, sustained three or four hour long Bible study, amen? Isn’t that awesome? So I’ve just given my introduction as I see the clock.

It’s by revealed faith in the Word of God that we will learn and receive and find grounding in the believing presuppositions that will allow us to interpret all things and interpret them rightly and righteously for our joy, for our good, for his glory and praise and honor.

We have so much more to see in this text, and as we come back next time. But I want to leave you with these precious words of the Apostle Paul. I’ll read them from 1 Corinthians 2 and then close in prayer. But in this encouragement and exhortation to the Corinthians, they, the Corinthians, like us Americans, they were always seeking something new. They wanted something that kind of tickled their ears, sounded good, sounded like the philosophies they’re used to.

They wanted their preachers and teachers to kind of come in the same mode as the influencers of their generation. They wanted Internet personalities. They wanted rock stars, celebrities, charismatic, cool, influential, highly regarded. Paul said, I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that because I don’t want any of your faith to be in me. I don’t want it to be in a celebrity. I don’t want you to follow status and charisma. I’m going to, I’m going to know nothing in your midst except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And that is a message that the world hates. They scoff at it. They scorn it. But that’s my message.

He goes on to say this in chapter 2, “We do speak wisdom among the mature. It’s a wisdom, however, not of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being abolished. But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that’s been hidden, which, which God predestined before the ages to our glory, a wisdom that none of the rulers of this age has understood. For if they had understood it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.

“But just as it is written, ‘The things that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.’ That’s what we preach. To us God has revealed these things through the Spirit, but the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

“For who among men knows the depths of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. But we have received not the spirit of the world, not the spirit of the world which is passing away,” with changing theories and changing personalities and changing celebrities and changing theories.

“No, we, we speak from the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God, of which depths we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but those taught by the Spirit. And we join these spiritual words to spiritual people. We bring them together.

“Oh, but a natural man, he doesn’t accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they’re foolishness to him. He can’t understand them because they’re spiritually examined. But he who is spiritual examines all things, and yet he himself is examined by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will direct him. We have the mind of Christ.” Bow with me in a word of prayer.

To have the mind of Christ, Father, is enough for us. To have the mind of Christ exposes us to the depths of God revealed to us by the Spirit. All these truths that eye has not seen, ear hasn’t heard tell of, it’s never even entered in the heart of the imagination of men what you’ve revealed in Scripture, what you intend for us for the future, and yet you give those things freely to your children. Babes we are, and you freely give them to us, exposing us to your thoughts through Christ and his Spirit.

And we pray, Father, we would not be those who take your word for granted, that we would not treat your Word shabbily, letting our Bible lie on the shelf from Monday to Saturday, only picking it up to go to church on Sunday.

We pray, Father, that we’d be readers, learners, students, that you’d deepen our appreciation for what you’ve revealed to us and given to us, that we’d come to worship you, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, who is the living and incarnate Word of God. We love you and thank you in his name. Amen.

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Luke 24:13-18

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