Well, I want to invite you to
take your Bibles and turn with me to the gospel of Luke, Luke
chapter 24. And the topic that has been assigned
to me, which you no doubt have seen in your conference guide,
is entitled, Beginning with Moses, subtitle, Christ and all the
Scriptures. And so, if you recognize that,
that's coming out of Luke chapter 24. And so, I want to begin by
reading this passage, and as you're turning to it, I want
to begin by just saying this, that the entire Bible is about
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament says He's coming.
The Gospels say He's here. The book of Acts proclaim Him. The epistles explain Him. And
Revelation says He's coming again. That's the Bible in a nutshell.
The very first verse of the Bible, in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. We know that that is the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was God's agent in creation. John 1, verse 3
says, everything that has come into being has been created by
Christ. And Colossians 1.16 says that
all things are from Him and by Him and for Him. And then the
last verse in the Bible, Revelation 22 and verse 21, the grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ be with you, amen. That's the bookends
around the entire Bible. And so, the whole Bible is a
hymn book. It's all about hymn, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what we're going to talk
about tonight. And so I want to begin reading
in verse 13. This is the passage that you're
familiar with, the road to Emmaus. And beginning in verse 13, we
read, and behold, two of them were going that very day to a
village named Emmaus. which was about seven miles from
Jerusalem. The setting is the very day of
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. These two disciples
on the road to Emmaus do not know. They've heard reports that
Christ's body is missing and that He has been raised. and
they are now leaving town, and as they are leaving town to go
back home to Emmaus, no doubt they are dejected. In fact, we'll
find out later, they are very downcast and sad because this
One in whom they have put their hope, things didn't turn out
the way that they thought they were going to turn out. They
thought He was going to redeem Israel and establish the messianic
rule, and it didn't And so Emmaus is seven miles. That's important. Seven miles northwest of Jerusalem,
verse 14, and they were talking with each other about all these
things which had taken place, and that refers to the last week
of our Lord's life, and the trials, and the crucifixion, and His
burial. And these two men are just engaged
in this conversation. They're trying to sort it out
in their own mind. What did we miss? What went wrong? What did we not grasp? In verse 15, while they were
talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began
traveling with them. The next verse tells us they
don't have a clue that this is Jesus. And verse 15, verse 16
says, their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. And He said to them, what are
these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking? He's trying to elicit a response
from them. And note at the end of verse
17, and they stood still. They just came to a standstill.
They are in shock. And it says, they were looking
sad. I mean, they are so low, they're
playing handball against the curb. I mean, they're at the
bottom. And one of them, verse 18, 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? In other words, where on earth
have you been? Everyone knows what just happened. Verse 19, and He said to them,
what things? And He is just reeling them in,
and He's pulling it out of them. This is all a setup. And they said to Him, the things
about Jesus, the Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty 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. In other words, they wanted him
to break the yoke of Roman oppression and reestablish the theocracy
of Israel. Indeed, beside all this, it is
the third day since these things happened. but also some women
among us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the
morning and did not find His body. They came saying that they
had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. Some of these were those who
went out, no doubt Peter and John, went out to the tomb and
found it just exactly as the women also had said, but Him
they did not see. Now Jesus now intrudes and He
says in verse 25, oh foolish men 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, who
wrote the first five books in the Bible, and with all the prophets,
that would refer to the rest of the Old Testament canon of
Scripture. He explained to them the things
concerning Himself. in all the Scriptures. Would
you not have loved to have been a part of that small group Bible
study? I would have. Just think about this. This is
Jesus teaching on Jesus. That's as good as it gets. He
is the greatest expositor who ever walked the earth, teaching
on the greatest subject that there is in the universe. This
is the living Word expounding the written Word. This is Jesus
preaching on Jesus. So, what do we need to take from
this? Where did He take them? Where
did He show of Himself? It's very clear that he sees
himself to be the central theme of all the Scripture. Here we
see the primacy and the centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
I want you to note three things with me as we look at these verses. Number one, I want you to see
the perfect unity of Scripture. Jesus here lays a very firm foundation. In verse 25, He talks about,
why are you so slow to believe, note, all that the prophets have
spoken? You see, Jesus understood that
all of the prophets have spoken with one voice, that they have
never contradicted themselves. that as the prophets have spoken,
and as it is recorded in the Scripture, that there is perfect
unity and perfect harmony. No one prophet contradicts another
prophet. They speak one message, one truth. And then we see in verse 27,
then beginning with Moses, who wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And with all of the prophets,
that would be from what is in our Bible from Joshua to Malachi,
the entirety of all 39 books of the Old Testament, He explained
to them the things concerning Himself, note, in all the Scriptures. What the prophets spoke in verse
25 is what is recorded in the Scriptures in verse 27. The word
Scriptures simply means the writings. It comes from a Greek word, graphe,
which we use graphics in the English language. And so, Jesus
is referring here to the written Word of God. And so, Jesus is
asserting the perfect unity of the Scripture. From Moses to
Malachi, it all hangs together. Here we see the perfect unity
in the Old Testament as affirmed by our Lord, that there is only
one origin of the world. There is only one entrance of
sin and death into the human race. There is only one diagnosis
of man's problem. There is only one way of salvation,
and there is one standard of morality. There is one design
for the family. There is one flow of human history. There is one end of the age.
There is one final judgment. There is one final eternal state.
It is all taught with comprehensive, yet perfect precision in the
books of the Old Testament. And when the New Testament would
be written, it would simply be an extension with perfect continuity
of what was taught in the Old Testament. So, that is the first
thing that we draw from this, and that in the Old Testament,
there is only one way of salvation, and it is the same way of salvation
that we find in the New Testament. Wherever anyone has ever been
saved on planet earth, it is, as we discussed earlier in the
Q&A, it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They look forward to the coming
of Christ, just as we look back to the coming of Christ. But
anytime, anywhere, anyone has ever been converted and brought
into the kingdom of God, it is by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. So that is the perfect unity
of the Scriptures. But second, I want you to note
the central message of the Scriptures. And I want us to look at verses
25 to 27 one more time. And Jesus now states that He
Himself is the master theme of the entire Scripture. So He says
in verse 25, oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all
that the prophets have spoken. Well, what were they to believe? And the next verse opens it up,
and Jesus said, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these
things and to enter into His glory? There are three key words
in verse 26, necessary, suffer, and glory. And Jesus is explaining
to them that it was absolutely necessary that Jesus would suffer
first before He would enter into His glory. And in verse 27, then
beginning with Moses, and with all the prophets, and with that
statement, Jesus is putting His arms around the entirety of the
Old Testament. He explained to them the things
concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. He understood that
the overarching master theme of the entire Old Testament is
the person and work of Christ. And this is not the first time
that Jesus has made such a statement. In John chapter 5, in verse 39,
Jesus said, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them
you have eternal life. It is these, referring to the
Scriptures, it is these that testify about Me. In other words, the entire message
of the Bible is one finger pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is testifying of Christ. That is why Paul could say in
1 Corinthians 1, 23, we preach Christ crucified. And that is why he would say
in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 2, for I determined to know nothing
among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And why he
could say to the Colossians in Colossians 128, we proclaim Him
crucified. Now, we would say, now wait a
minute, Paul. You taught the full counsel of God. You taught
all ten areas of systematic theology. And we have the thirteen epistles
that Paul wrote, and we know that Paul preached on and wrote
concerning bibliology, theology proper, Christology, pneumatology,
angelology, anthropology, hermetology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology. He taught the full gambit of
theology, yet Paul says, I determined to know nothing among you except
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Yet, he taught all of these other
areas of theology. How does that square? All of
the lines of Paul's theology were intersecting at the summit
and at the highest point in the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Even the Father says, this is
My beloved Son, listen to Him. And even the Holy Spirit has
come into the world, Jesus said, to bring to our remembrance the
things that He spoke. And in the Great Commission,
we are to go out and to make disciples and to baptize and
to teach them all things that Christ has commanded. So, Jesus is set at the pinnacle
of the message of Scripture, and He is set at the pinnacle
of all of the lines of theology, and as we preach the full counsel
of God, it is Jesus Christ whom we are showcasing. Bibliology
is in reality the the Word of Christ. Theology proper, Jesus
is the image of the invisible God. He certainly is the heart
of Christology. Pneumatology, it is the Spirit
of Christ. Angelology, Jesus says that they
are ministering to Him. and we are made in the very image
of God in Christ. That is anthropology, etc., etc.,
all the way down to eschatology and the return of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So, as we come to the Old Testament,
we are not surprised that Jesus would make such an expansive
statement as this, that beginning with Moses and with all of the
prophets, They testify of Him and that He explained Himself
in all of the Scripture. So, what do we take from this? Well, the first thing that I
want to say is, I do not believe that Jesus is teaching that He
is in every single text of the Old Testament. That is not what
He is teaching. Now, the road to Emmaus, verse
13 tells us, was seven miles. The average person walks 17…
in one mile, it takes 17 minutes to walk one mile. The total walk
would have been 119 minutes, which is less than two hours.
This was not a walk to the North Pole. This was a walk to Emmaus. And so Jesus only had time to
address the high points, to address the mountain peaks. So, Jesus
did not even have the time to go into every nuance of the Old
Testament in this text. In fact, it takes, to read the
entire Old Testament, the average person, it takes 40 hours. Jesus
had maybe an hour and a half. And so, he can only address those
major places where he would be found. And so, where are we to
look for the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, he says in verse 26, was
it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to
enter into glory? I first want to comment on the
word necessary. It was necessary for Him to suffer
and necessary for Him to enter into glory because the Old Testament
had prophesied of these things. And the grass withers and the
flower fades away, but the Word of our God abides forever. And
everything that was recorded in the Old Testament of the prophecies
of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was necessary that
they would be fulfilled with great precision. Now Jesus, according
to verse 26, addressed those portions of the Old Testament
that foretold and foreshadowed that it was necessary for Him
to suffer. That was the part that they had
missed. That was the part even the disciples missed. They saw
only the glory. They did not see the groanings
and the crucifixion. And so Jesus now must correct
their misunderstanding that before He would enter into His glory,
the Old Testament stated again and again and again that He must
suffer. And His suffering is inclusive
in His sin-bearing, substitutionary death upon Calvary's cross. Well, where in the Old Testament
do we find the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ? And it
begins in Genesis 3, in verse 15, the proto-euangelion, the
first mention of the gospel. God Himself is the preacher in
the garden, and the congregation is the devil, the serpent. And
God proclaims that the heel of the seed of the woman must be
bruised. but He will crush the head of
the serpent. But He will be bruised, and He
will suffer, but He will recover from that suffering, and even
in that is a foreshadowing of the resurrection. And then there
was the animal in the garden that must be slain and be skinned
in order to clothe Adam and Eve, and that too a foreshadowing
of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in Genesis
4, the blood of Abel's sacrifice must be shed in order for it
to be a better and more acceptable sacrifice. The ram caught in
the thicket must be offered up by Abraham in Genesis 22, and
it was a foreshadowing of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ,
a substitutionary suffering. And the Passover lamb must be
slain, and the blood must be applied to the lentils of the
door. But there must be a death. There
must be a death of the one who is innocent on behalf of the
one who is guilty. the entire Levitical sacrificial
system was a foreshadowing of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ in Leviticus 1 through 5. We read that the head of the
house must slay the young bull and offer up the blood. He must
skin the burnt offering. There is suffering in the Old
Testament in foreshadowing the coming of Christ. The goat must
be slain on the day of atonement. The bronze serpent must be lifted
up in the wilderness. The cursed man must hang on a
tree in Deuteronomy 21. And the greater son of David
must cry out in Psalm 22, 1, my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? And this psalm goes on to talk
about the suffering of this one. He would be surrounded by many
enemies who are like roaring lions, and they must pierce his
hands and his feet. They must count his bones. They
must divide his garments. It was foretold in the Old Testament
of His sufferings that He must be betrayed by a friend who eats
bread with Him. He must be betrayed for thirty
pieces of silver. He must not have a bone broken.
He must be pierced and looked upon as a public spectacle. The servant of the Lord passages
in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and 52, and 53 speak of how He must suffer. He must be the despised one. He must be abhorred by the nation,
Isaiah 49, 7. He must give His back to those
who strike Him, and His cheeks must be plucked out, or His beard
must be plucked out. It says in Isaiah 52, 14, he
must have his appearance marred more than any man. Isaiah 53, 3, he must be despised. He must be forsaken of men. Same verse, he must be a man
of sorrows. He must be acquainted with grief. He must bear the sins, bear our
griefs. and carry our sorrows. He must
be pierced for our transgressions. He must be crushed for our iniquities. He must suffer our chastening
and our scourging. He must be oppressed. He must
be afflicted. He must be cut off from the land
of the living. Time does not permit us tonight
to walk all the way through every portion of Old Testament Scripture,
but suffice to say, there is this clear message that this
Messiah who will come, He must suffer rejection. He must suffer
death. He must be one who will be cast
down. before He will enter into His
glory. That is what His own disciples
missed. That is what these two disciples
missed. This is what we more clearly
understand in the light of New Testament Scripture. Oh, the
message of the cross is an offensive message. The message of the cross
is one of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ as He bled
and died in the place of sinners. He laid down His life, a ransom
for many. It is a message of great sorrow
and suffering and sin-bearing that runs throughout the Old
Testament. but also in verse 26, we see
that it was necessary also for Him to enter into His glory. His suffering was not the end
of the story. The suffering was simply the
means by which He would enter into glory, because following
His rejection would be His reign, and following His death would
be His diadem. And Isaiah 53 and verse 10 so
clearly speaks of this prophetic necessity that He would enter
into His glory after His suffering. And we read, He will see His
offspring. Now that's strange. A man will
be put to death, but He will see His offspring? He, referring to God the Father,
will prolong His days, referring to the Son of God. The good pleasure
of the Lord will prosper in His hand as a result of the anguish
of His soul. He will see it and be satisfied. Verse 12 of Isaiah 53, I will
allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the
booty with the strong. Daniel 7 verse 14 speaks of Him
entering into this glory as He approaches the Ancient of Days.
And it says, to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom
that all the peoples and nations and men of every language might
serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion and will not pass away. This, too, is the entire message
of the Old Testament. It's basically two-part. It is
His suffering, and it is His glory. And in the short time
that Jesus had on the road to Emmaus, He put His arms around
the entire Old Testament and says, it is filled with the gospel
message. It is filled with the message
of me." And while Christ is not the subject of every Old Testament
passage, He is the speaker in every Old Testament passage,
and every Old Testament passage plays its part like putting bricks
in a wall to support the whole message that the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Messiah, the Son of David, the seed of the woman, the seed
of Abraham, He is coming and He will bring salvation to His
people. And this is exactly what the
apostles went out in the book of Acts and proclaimed. They simply preached the Old
Testament, because there was no New Testament at this time.
And as they preached Christ, they used the Old Testament to
preach Christ, and thousands were converted. Peter on the
day of Pentecost, what does he do? He quotes Joel 2, 28 to 32. The last verse says, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Peter then
goes into an exposition. What is the name of the Lord? And he will say, is Jesus the
Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with many signs and wonders
that you put to death, but God raised from the dead He then
goes to Psalm 16, verses 8 through 11. He then goes to Psalm 132,
verse 11. He then circles back to Psalm
16. He then comes to Psalm 110, verse
1. The Lord said to my Lord, sit
at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for
you. The entire sermon on the day of Pentecost that proclaimed
the gospel of the person and work of Christ was Joel, was
Psalm 116, Psalm 132, Psalm 110. And if we had time tonight, which
we do not, but we could go through Acts chapter 3 and that great
sermon that Peter preached after he healed the lame man. It's
just an exposition of Christ in the Old Testament. And what
does Stephen do in Acts 7 as he is before the Sanhedrin? He
walks through the whole Old Testament that leads up to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And in Acts 8, the Ethiopian
eunuch, and Philip hops into the chariot with him. And what
are you reading? And he's reading Isaiah 53. Do you understand what you're
reading? No, not unless someone explains it. And it says, he
preached Jesus to him, using the Old Testament. And we see
the same on the mission field with Paul as he preaches through
Galatia. And as he comes to Thessalonica
in Acts 17, he goes into the synagogue and explains to them
the Lord Jesus Christ in all of the Old Testament. So what Jesus is doing here on
the road to Emmaus is what we must understand. that the thread
that runs through the Old Testament is the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ into this world. And He is there in prophecy,
and He is there in type, and He is there in foreshadowing,
and He is there in so many different ways. He is there in Christophanies. This is the central message of
the Old Testament. If you read the Old Testament
and you do not see the Lord Jesus Christ, you're reading the Old
Testament in a dark room with your eyes closed and the Bible's
upside down, and you've got blinders on, and then sunglasses on top
of that. Now finally, what is the proper
response? I want you to look at verse 32.
I must quickly wrap this up. They continue on into Emmaus,
and Jesus gives the appearance that He is going to continue
His journey, and they beg Him and persuade Him to stay. And
so Jesus stays with them and actually serves them food, and
then suddenly vanishes. Verse 31, and their eyes were
now at last opened, and they recognized Him. And as soon as
they recognized Him, verse 31, He vanishes into thin air. This
is just like when He appeared in the upper room. He didn't
open the door. He just walked right through
the walls, and He just appeared in the upper room. He just appeared
on the road to Emmaus, and now in His resurrection body, He
just vanishes. Notice what they said in verse
32. They said to one another, were not our hearts burning within
us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining
the Scriptures to us. You want your heart to be on
fire for the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to have a zeal for
God? Do you want to throw off lukewarmness? Do you want to
be lit up for God? Do you want to have a spiritual
pulse and a spiritual heartbeat? Do you want to be able to say,
my heart is burning for God and burning for the Lord Jesus Christ? Then read the Old Testament and
let Jesus show you Himself in the Old Testament. and read the
New Testament and see the greater light of the New Testament be
shined upon the Old Testament. But what is important is that
you see Jesus. What is important? The main thing
is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing
in the Bible is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ on a mission
of salvation, on a mission of redemption, that He would save
His people from their sins. And as we find ourselves here
tonight, we could not gather this many people together in
one room and everyone be born again. As you would find yourself
here tonight, And if you are coming to the awareness that
I have never believed upon Jesus Christ, I have never committed
my life to Christ, I call you to believe upon Christ tonight.
He entered this world born of a virgin. He lived a sinless
and perfect life. He lived the life that you and
I could never live, and His perfect righteousness is what is credited
to our account when we believe upon Christ. He was qualified
to go to the cross, and there He was lifted up to die upon
Calvary's cross. And God transferred the sin of
all the people who would ever believe upon Him. And He transferred
that sin to Christ. And Him who knew no sin, God
made to be sin for us. He suffered and bled and died
upon that cross. He gave His life that you and
I might have life. He shed His blood to make the
only atonement for our sin. He was the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. They took Him down from that
cross, having made the atonement for sinners. They buried Him
in a borrowed tomb. And on the third day, He was
raised from the dead, and He then entered into glory on the
day of His ascension. He is now seated at the right
hand of God the Father. And the Bible says, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." You must
believe in this One who suffered upon Calvary's cross. He suffered
the wrath of God in the place of those for whom He bore their
sin. And He has now entered into glory,
and if you'll commit your life to Jesus Christ, He will take
you into glory one day. when He returns or when you die.
There is salvation in no other name, for there is no other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. There
is one God and one Mediator, which is the Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave His life for ransom for many. If you will commit
your life to Jesus Christ, If you will deny yourself and take
up a cross and become a follower of Christ, if you will enter
through the narrow gate that leads into the kingdom of God,
if you will take that decisive step of faith and surrender and
submit your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, He will receive
you. And one day when you die, He
will take you home to be with Him in glory. and He is preparing
a place for all those who will commit their life to Him. This is the message of the Old
Testament. This is the message of the New Testament. This is
the message of the entire Bible. that our all-loving, gracious
God has provided salvation in the person of His Son, Jesus
Christ. And Jesus, as He walked on the
road to Emmaus that day and looked into the Scriptures with them,
He said, they testify of Me, and they speak of My suffering
and My glory. And may you know what it is to
enter in to the kingdom of God and enter into His glory one
day when He comes for you. Let us pray. Father in heaven,
we thank You for the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ in all
of Scripture. We praise You that He steps out
of the pages of even the Old Testament as the central message,
as the object of our faith, as a Savior and Lord. And Father, thank You that You
have opened our eyes, that we might behold our need of Christ
and see who Christ is. And for any here tonight who
have never come all the way to faith in Jesus Christ, O God,
I pray that tonight would be that night, and that they would
surrender their life to Christ and enter in to the kingdom of
God. Father, we pray this in Jesus'
name. Amen.