Let's read the short account
in Mark chapter 16 verse 12 and 13 and then we'll read what has
for a long time been one of my favourite passages of scripture.
And for anyone who ever has opportunities to speak on God's behalf, whether
from a pulpit or to a friend, our one desire I praise always,
echoed in the words of verse 32 of Luke 24, is that did not
our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road
and while He opened the scriptures to us? If God does that, God
will be magnified and His people will be blessed immensely. Mark
16.12 After that, he appeared in another form to two of them
as they walked and went into the country. And they went and
told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. Now look, it's 2413. Now behold,
two of them were traveling that same day to a village called
Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked
together of all these things which had happened. So it was,
while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near
and went with them. But their eyes were restrained,
so that they did not know him. And he said to them, What kind
of conversation is that you have with one another as you walk,
and are sad? Then the one whose name was Cleopas
answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things
which happened there in these days? And he said to them, What
things? And so they said to him, The
things concerning Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet, mighty indeed
in word before God and all the people. and how the chief priests
and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and
crucified him. But we were hoping that it was
he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today
is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain
women of our company who arrived at the term early astonished
us. When they did not find his body, they came saying that they
had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. And certain
of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just
as the women had said, but him they did not see. Then he said
to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all
that the prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to have
suffered these things and to enter into His glory. And beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the
scriptures the things concerning Himself. Then they drew near
to the village where they were going, and He indicated that
He would have gone further. But they constrained Him, saying,
Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to stay with them.
Now it came to pass, as he sat at the table with them, that
he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then
their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished from
their sight. And they said to one another,
did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on
the road, and while he opened the Scriptures to us? So they
rose up at that very hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found
the eleven and those who were with them gathered together,
saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. And
they told about the things that had happened on the road, and
how he was known to them. in the breaking of bread. Now
as I said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of
them and said to them, peace to you. This is one of those
remarkable passages of scripture that really needs to be read
again and again and left without a preacher adding to it because
the words are so profound and so beautiful. But there are some
incredibly important elements in this story for us to lay hold
of and lay to our hearts. As I said to you earlier, it
is the first sermon preached after the resurrection. The sermon
that Zechariah preached and the declaration he made at the beginning
of Luke's Gospel is the first word from God for 400 years.
And this is the first word from the Lord Jesus, the first proclamation
of the gospel after the resurrection. And so when the Lord does things
first and lays foundations, it's good to look at those foundations. It's good to look closely at
them. And it's good to test the things that are the foundation
of our faith against the things the Lord has laid before us here. So many people would love to
know, wouldn't they? Why don't we have all of this
sermon written out for us? It would be amazing to know exactly
what the Lord Jesus said as He preached from Genesis 1-1 to
Malachi chapter 4, and He preached Himself out of those verses. And it is remarkable also that
we have in the book of Acts 30 years of gospel preaching by
the apostles themselves. And yet, other than snippets,
we don't have them recorded. God has good reasons for doing
those things. And ultimately, I think the good
reason is, is that He's actually given us His Word. He's given us His Word made flesh,
and He's given us this Word, this precious Word that we hold
in our laps. And we need nothing beyond what
He has written. If He will give us the faith
just to take him at his word and to believe his word, to believe
all that he says, then we'll find remarkable things and we
will have, according to the scriptures, we'll have remarkable meetings
with the Lord Jesus. This indeed is a remarkable meeting. Mark says, that he appeared in
another form to two of them. And so, as these men were travelling
on this way to Emmaus, which may have been on the way to Galilee,
maybe they were going back to Galilee. We don't know the name
of the other one and we don't need to speculate. But they were
on this road. Extraordinary, really, to think
of all that was happening in Jerusalem, and yet these men
had walked away from Jerusalem. You would think with all the
excitement that had been aroused with what had happened at the
tomb that morning, that one place that inquisitive people would
want to be is around Jerusalem. But as they were traveling, they
were talking together about the things which had happened, verse
14. They were talking about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And while they were talking,
while they were conversing about the Lord, He drew near and went
with them. So much of our lives and so much
of our conversation is filled with things other than about
the Lord. What a great encouragement this
is for us as we walk For us, as we meet with each other, to
make the Lord Jesus the topic of our conversation. Maybe, just
maybe, as we make him the topic of our conversation, he might
do to us as he did to these men. He might draw near and he might
go with us. I don't know about you, but for
me it's embarrassing and causes me to stress how much of my life
is about things other than Him. And yet all of eternity is going
to be about Him, and we'll never tire of talking about Him, we'll
never tire of singing about Him, and we will never tire of being
with Him. And we will be like these men.
We'll be saying to the Lord Jesus, abide with us, and we'll have
that prayer answered. That's the cry, that is the cry
of the hearts of God's children, isn't it? Abide with us. And that's what the Lord Jesus
did. Verse 15, He drew near and He went with them. But notice
verse 16. Their eyes were restrained. Mark says He appeared in another
form. But the Holy Spirit says that
their eyes were restrained so that they did not know Him. And
there is a very good reason, as we'll see in a little while,
why God did that. And he said to them, what kind
of conversation is that you're having with one another as you've
walked and are sad? These men had good reason, in
a sense, to be sad. They say to the Lord Jesus, Are
you just a stranger? He says, really, have you just
been dwelling on your own in isolation in Jerusalem and you
haven't known the things that have happened in these days? Again it's a reminder that the
crucifixion, the life and death and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
was known to all Jerusalem. It was the topic of conversation
and there would have been no other topics of conversation
in those days. And He said to them what things,
and we have from them a wonderful declaration of the Lord Jesus. but it's limited. Just listen. So they said to him, the things
concerning Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet, mighty indeed
before God and all the people. The deeds of the Lord Jesus and
the words of the Lord Jesus were deeds and words which all the
people knew of. There was no one in all of Israel
who wasn't aware of what the Lord Jesus had done, the miracles
He's performed, and the words that He had said. Verse 20, And
how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned
to death and crucified Him. But verse 21 reveals why these
men were sad and downcast. But we were hoping that it was
He who was going to redeem Israel. You see, their thoughts, their
thoughts about redemption, their thoughts of salvation, their
thoughts about Israel, and sadly their thoughts about the Lord
Jesus were still fixed on the idea that the Lord Jesus had
come to create an earthly kingdom. An earthly kingdom centred on
an earthly city called Jerusalem and centred again on an earthly
people called Israel. The other thing is that these
men confessed that he was a prophet, mighty indeed and word before
God. And yet how many times, how many,
many times has he told them again and again and again, in Mark
chapter 8 and 9 and 10, when his feet are anointed, he said
that she did this for my Again and again, He told them, and
again and again, their scriptures speak of a crucified Messiah. They speak of a spiritual redemption,
of a spiritual Israel. They speak of a Messiah who must
come, who must suffer, who must die, and then enter into His
kingdom and His glory. Also, having not believed all
of the words of the Lord Jesus, they didn't believe the words
of credible witnesses. And yes, and certain of our company
who arrived at Shem earlier astonished us. When they did not find his
body, they came saying they had also seen a vision of angels
and who said he was alive. They didn't believe all of the
words of the Lord Jesus. They didn't believe all the words
of God from the scriptures. And they didn't believe the angels
and they didn't believe these women who were credible witnesses. How much comfort do I miss out on? How much peace do
we miss out on? Because we don't believe all
that God has said. It's easy to believe some things
but not all things isn't it? To believe all that God says
about us. It's hard in the midst of our
sin It's hard in the midst of our weakness and our frailty
to believe what God says about us, that our righteousness is
not anything to do with us. We have a righteousness from
God, a righteousness from heaven, and it's not affected by the
things that we do here, but our peace is. How often we are sad. How often, like these men, we
walk along talking about the Lord, but the talk is one of
sadness. It's true of me, far too much
when I care to relate. If we could just believe God,
as Hebrews said, we'd enter into a rest, again and again, We want
rest in this world, but rest is really found in trusting the
words and the work of another, and not ourselves and the things
we see around us. He didn't come to establish an
earthly kingdom. He came to establish a spiritual
kingdom. He did redeem Israel. He didn't
fail for one tiny millisecond. Then he rebukes them, and justifiably
rebukes them. Then he said to them, O foolish
ones, and slow of heart to believe. It's all very well to believe
bits of what the prophets say. Just read what he says. Slow
of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Ought
not the Christ have suffered these things, and to enter into
His glory? The Scriptures are just full
of the Lord Jesus, but they're full of a Christ who comes and
suffers and dies and gloriously reigns again. In fact, the very
things which caused these men to be sad about the Lord Jesus
were the very things that proved that Jesus was the Messiah. Is it not the same with us? How often it is the things that
we suffer that cause us to be sad. We see the temptations of
sin, the world, and the devil. And we again and again experience
our weaknesses and our frailties. We struggle with our coldness
toward God. We struggle with our prayerlessness. We struggle with the inability
of good works. We struggle in witnessing, we
struggle in worship, we struggle in this body of flesh. And just
like the Lord Jesus, The things which are often for us the cause
of us feeling most disturbed are in reality the evidences
of God's work in our life. The spirit lusts against the
flesh. We cannot do what we want to
do. Sin is mixed with everything
we do. For many, many people in this
world, the very things which cause them the greatest comfort
and the greatest sense of peace and assurance before God are
the very things that should cause them to be most disturbed. How
many do you meet who want to talk about their good deeds and
their good activities and their good works. I have a friend who
I may see in the next few days, and each time I have seen her
for the last two years, she parades before me a litany of her activities. How much time she spends in prayer
every day. How much she reads the Bible. How much she does all of these
things. It troubles me deeply that the
very things that she wants the world to see as her confidence
are not the things that God's people boast about in the scriptures. We must wear a crown of thorns
before we enter glory. The very things which disturbed
them most about Jesus as Messiah were the very things that proved
from the Scriptures that He really was the Messiah. And in verse
27, He says, Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. There cannot be a clearer word
from God that this book, this book that you hold in your hand,
is a book about the Lord Jesus and Him crucified. The gospel
is about the Lord Jesus and Him crucified. Here we are taught
as plain as words can make, that the whole body of Scripture is
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The message of Holy Scripture
is the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose
of the Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Luther said,
There is not a word in the Bible which can be understood without
reference to the cross. as we go to a cradle to find
a baby, so we go to the Scriptures to find Christ. The Bible is
a hymn book. It's not a book about science,
and yet when it talks of science it's talking truth. It's not
a book about science, it's a book about Christ. It's not a book
about morality, it's a book about Christ. It's not a book necessarily
about history, politics, philosophy, or law. It's a book about the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a book about church
dogma or theology. It's a book about the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are sent, we are here at God's
appointment. to preach the message of the
book, Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. Paul sought nothing else amongst
them but to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. It's of first importance, it's
of vital importance, says Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. I declare to you the gospel which
I preach to you which also you received, and in which you stand. If you're going to stand in this
world as God's child, you will stand on this gospel. By which
you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to
you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, first
of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins. the sins of his people, according
to the Scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again
on the third day, according to the Scriptures, that he was seen
by Cephas and by the Twelve. He was seen by witnesses. In
Acts chapter 20 there is this very, very moving account of
Paul saying farewell with tears to the elders of the Ephesian
church who'd come out to meet them. And he says in verse 26,
therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the
blood of all men. Which means, of course, that
for gospel preachers, there is a responsibility before God for
the blood of people. To discharge that responsibility,
verse 27, is required. I am innocent because I have
not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. The whole counsel of God is Jesus
Christ and him crucified. That was his determination when
he went to Corinth. I determined to know nothing
to determine not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified." And that's what the Scriptures are all about.
That is what it is to preach the message of this book. Jesus
accused the Pharisees. He said, you search the Scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life, but They are they
which testify of me. Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is the whole counsel of God. That was the sermon that day. The Bible is a book with one
message. Redemption, righteousness, eternal
life in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why when he opened that
book, opened their eyes to see this book, he started in Genesis
and he preached himself in Genesis. In the beginning, God. And he preached the Lord Jesus
Christ. He preached himself as the seed
of the woman. He preached himself that seed
of the woman who was bruised. He preached Himself as that slain
Lamb that clothed Adam and Eve from their shame. He preached
Himself as that sacrifice. He preached Himself in all that happened, in all
of Scriptures. All of it is a picture of redemption
in the Lord Jesus. It was pictured in that Lamb
caught in the thicket in Genesis 22. It's the Lord Jesus who is
the Shiloh in Genesis 49. It's the Lord Jesus who is the
prophet in Deuteronomy 18. It's the Lord Jesus who is the
glorious King in Psalm 2 and the rest of the Psalms. It's
the Lord Jesus who is the glorious husband of his bride in Song
of Songs. It's the Lord Jesus who fills
Isaiah with glorious pictures of him, who is the covenant who
is the Redeemer, who is the husband of true Israel. He's preached
in Micah, he's preached in Zechariah as the one who is slain, the
one who is slain by God. Job spoke of the Lord Jesus as
his Redeemer. Enoch long to see his second
coming. And he's preached in all those
typical people. Adam is a type of the Lord Jesus. Noah and the Ark are typical
of the Lord Jesus. Melchizedek is typical of the
Lord Jesus, a king and a priest. Moses is typical. Aaron is typical as the priest. Joshua, who takes them into the
new land. Boaz, the kingsman redeemer. David, that great king. Solomon,
that great wise king. Typical people. The things in
the Old Testament are typical of the Lord Jesus. Noah's ark. Jacob's ladder. the brazen serpent,
the paschal lamb, the scapegoat, the manna from heaven, the smitten
rock, the altar of sacrifice, the mercy seat. Typical people,
typical things, typical places. The tabernacle, the meeting place,
the dwelling place of God and his people together is the Lord
Jesus. The temple, is the Lord Jesus,
typifies the Lord Jesus, and every little tiny thing in it,
from the coverings on the outside to the smallest things inside,
are all about the Lord Jesus. The cities of refuge are all
about the Lord Jesus. And we come to the Gospels and
we just have these wonderful Wonderful pictures of the Lord
Jesus. Matthew presents Him as the promised
King of Israel. Mark presented, as we've seen,
Him as that servant of God. Luke presents Him as that glorious
Son of Man. And John presents Him as the
Son of God. The Gospels tell us that the
Redeemer has come. And Acts tells us that the Redeemer
is enthroned and is gloriously working all things in this world. So everything in the Bible All
doctrine is about the Lord Jesus. It is good for us when we're
having debates with people about doctrine that we centre all those
things on the Lord Jesus. We go to the Lord Jesus to know
about grace. Divine sovereignty is a declaration
that He is Lord. Predestination is a declaration
of sinners being ordained and predestined by God to be conformed
to His image. Election is the Lord Jesus' choice
of His bride for Himself. All of those things, when our
friend Peter Meany was here, he spoke on grace. and it was wonderful that he
spoke on the doctrines of grace, but he spoke about the Lord Jesus
Christ. We go to the Lord Jesus and from
Him we learn the doctrines of grace. We don't go to the doctrines
of grace first, we go to Jesus and we'll see Jesus as that perfect
Saviour, that perfect Husband, that perfect King, that perfect
Redeemer. We are called upon by God in
these verses to see Jesus in the scriptures and to believe
what God says in all of the scriptures. We have no warrant from God to
take any part of this Word and hold it against another part
of this Word. It is all about Him. We go and
find Jesus. Go to the Bible and look for
the Lord Jesus and we'll find Him. If you can't find him, look
harder. And if it takes a while, pray
some more. But he's there. He says he's
there. Just read it. He expounded to
them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. I think it was Spurgeon who said
the difficulties in the Bible are just there as footstools
for us to pray on. just when we encounter difficulties,
so the answer is in the glory of the Lord Jesus in this. And
He must show me. I don't care how long it takes,
but it's about Him. That's what these verses say,
it's about Him. Verse 28, Then they drew near
to the village where they were going, and He indicated that
He would have gone further. but they constrained him. How often do we feel like the
Lord Jesus has come and departed? It's interesting that God calls
upon his people to call upon him with importunity just like
that that woman who went to the unjust judge, like Jacob who
wrestled with God. Abraham restrained God until
he received the things of God. Manoah and his wife restrained
God. He loves to draw out our desires. and He loves to compel us to
exercise our spiritual affections by waiting for our prayers. Our Lord sees it is good for
us to prove our love by withholding mercies till we ask for them. Let us ask much, let us ask often,
and lose nothing for the lack of asking. Lay hold of Him with
passion. Don't let Him go until He blesses
you. And what a remarkable word, that
word abide. It's a beautiful word, isn't
it? It means to stay and to remain. Don't leave us. They say, to
this man who at this stage is still a stranger to them. Their eyes, in verse 16, were
restrained. Now it came to pass, as he sat
at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed and brokered,
and gave it to them. a familiar thing that he'd done
for three and a half years, with familiar words and familiar actions. Then their eyes were opened and
they knew him. They knew it was him. Why were their eyes restrained? through all of this sermon when
it was the Lord Jesus preaching the Lord Jesus to them. I think there is one very, very
good reason. Is it the Lord Jesus wants the
focus? of gospel preaching to be on
the words of God about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's
the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation, not the
preacher. In fact, the best of preaching
is when people walk out that door and their eyes are fixed
on an amazing Saviour and they've forgotten the person who spoke
the words altogether. The person doesn't matter, Jesus
matters. The person doesn't matter, the
gospel matters. Paul, it's extraordinary how
he describes himself to the Corinthians as a man who seemed extraordinarily
weak and wasn't a trained speaker. It's remarkable when you read
the things that he wrote. that that was the testimony about
him. Why did Paul make him weak? Because
the power was in the message about Jesus. It wasn't in a person. It wasn't in a person's wisdom.
It wasn't in a person's charisma. It wasn't in a person's power. It all is about Jesus. And the weaker The vessel, the
more glorious the saviour seems to be. Their eyes were restrained. They were restrained by God. So the focus would be on Jesus
in the Scriptures, something that they can have with them
and take with them and have written on their hearts always, rather
than a person they could hold on to. Which is why I think the
Lord said to Mary, don't cling to me, don't hold on to me. Something
much, much better. is coming for you, Mary, whom
I love so much. I'm actually going to indwell
you by my Spirit. The communion that you will have
with me from the day of Pentecost on is infinitely better. He said to his disciples, it
is good for you that I go away. We are better off now. than those
people were 2000 years ago who walked with Jesus and talked
with Jesus and were the recipients of his miracles. I didn't say
that, he said it. It's better. We are blessed people
to have him abide with us. And he abides with us in gatherings
like this, scattered throughout the world. Then their eyes were
opened. They were opened by God, and
they knew Him, and He vanished from their sight. You see, this
was the response of Gospel preaching. Not with the power of the preacher,
but with the words of God. Did not our heart burn within
us while He talked with us on the road and He opened the Scriptures
to us? Has that been your experience?
I pray that it has. I pray that it's an experience
that you go to God and say, I want to experience it again. Open
my eyes and show me wonderful things from your word. Show me
Jesus again from your word that I can have this written, written
in his blood before me to hold on to. It shows me the Lord Jesus. The Scriptures opened, show us
Jesus. And the response of God's people
is a beautiful one, isn't it? They want Him to abide with them. And then secondly, they want
to go and tell others. They want to go and tell others,
what are they going to say? They're going to talk to the
others about the Scriptures. They're going to talk to the
others about the Jesus of the Scriptures, as glorious as it
was for Him to meet with them. His purpose was that they would
see His glory in His written word, more than in the man who
walked alongside them. We have a glorious and wonderful
Saviour who is our Husband, who is our Maker and He is our Redeemer. And He does promise, He does
promise to come, He does promise to come and make His home with
us. those remarkable words in John
14 are just amazing isn't it? John 14 23 if anyone loves me he will keep
my word he will hold my word dear in his heart and his life
and my father will love him and What's the promise? We will come
and make our home with Him. We will come. We will make our
dwelling place on this earth in people like us and amongst
us. And out of that, he will do as
he's done here. He will draw those people together,
that they might commune with each other about the Lord Jesus. And it is remarkable, as we are
about to have the Lord's Supper, that their eyes were opened when
he took that bread, and he blessed it, and he broke it. He did as He did at that Last
Supper. He was showing them that the
Christ must suffer all of these things and enter into His glory. A glory that we enter into with
Him as we meet with Him in His Word. Let's pray.