Let us turn to God's Word in
the portion of Scripture that we read Luke chapter 24 and directing
you to the words that we have here in verses 44 and 45 Luke
24 44 and he said unto them these are
the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law
of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. Then opened thee their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures." I want us to consider
then Christ in the Old Testament as he speaks of himself here
at the end of verse 44 all things must be fulfilled
he says which were written in the Lord of Moses and in the
prophets and in the Psalms concerning me now the one who is speaking
these words the Lord Jesus is of course himself the incarnate
words as we know from the following gospel there at the beginning
of John's gospel in the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God the same was in the beginning
with God all things were made by Him and without Him was not
anything made that was made and then later we're told how the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory
the glories of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and
truth. The incarnate word then is the
one who is speaking and he speaks of the word of the Old Testament
scriptures which all that concerned him. But he also does refer to
his own words at the beginning of verse 44. These are the words,
he said, which I speak unto you. And that relationship then between
the incarnate words and the word that we have here in Holy Scripture. we often sing, and we're going
to sing it again tonight, that's hymn 878, and the verse, the
scriptures, and the Lord be one tremendous name, the written
and incarnate word in all things, are the same. And so, I'm going
to divide what I say into two parts. First of all, I want to
say something with regards to the written words, that objective
truth that is contained here, in the scriptures and then secondly
the importance of the opening of the understanding that is
spoken of of course in verse 45 that subjective truth when
God brings his word and writes it, as it were, upon our hearts,
makes a gracious application of the words to us. Following
then that very simple two-fold division. First of all, to say
something with regards to the written words. And that that
we have in particular at the end of verse 44. All things must be fulfilled
which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets,
and in the Psalms concerning Mary. And in these words, the
Lord Jesus is referring quite clearly to the threefold division
of the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, the Old
Testament, there are those three quite distinct sections. There's the Law, the first five
books, the books of Moses, then there is that that they call
the Prophets, and then thirdly what they call the Hagiographer,
or the Writings. And it is the Book of Psalms
that is the principal part of what they call the Writings.
It stands at the head of that section. And so it is evident
here that the Lord Jesus is referring to the Old Testament in its totality,
law, prophets, and Psalms or writings. And of course previously,
speaking to those two on the road to Emmaus, in verse 27 we're
told, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expanded
unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. He is emphasizing in the fact
that he is there in all the writings of the Old Testament, whatever
part one might turn to, be it the law of Moses, be it the words
of the prophets, or be it the writings. He is the great subject
matter of the Old Testament. Remember again what he says to
the Jews on another occasion, back in John chapter 5, search
the Scriptures. In them ye think that ye have
eternal life, and these are they that testify of me. Thus it is written, then he says. Thus it is written. And all that is written must
have its accomplishment. Those things written in the Law
of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms, they are all to be fulfilled. And they are fulfilled in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how Paul, when he writes
at the beginning of that great 15th chapter in the first epistle
to the Corinthians, again speaks of the message, the gospel that
he had been proclaiming, the gospel that he preached at Corinth.
He writes, Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the gospel
which I preached unto you. which also ye have received,
and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep
in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed
in vain. And then he says, I delivered unto you first of all that which
I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to
the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again
the third day according to the Scriptures. He appeals twice
there then to those things that were written. And remember, he
had been a Pharisee, he was the son of a Pharisee, he'd been
scored at the feet of a great Jewish Rabbi, Gamaliel. He was
well-versed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. And he
is saying there to the Corinthians that all that happened to the
Lord Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of those things written in the
Old Testament. I was recently reading some of
Martin Luther's sermons. In fact, I was reading what they
call his church hostel. It's like the Church of England
homilies. At the time of the Reformation,
of course, here in England, when God so graciously visited the
land, poured out His Spirit, and there was a great awakening,
we call it the Protestant Reformation, but what ignorance there was
amongst many of those who were priests in the parish churches
throughout the land, and so the Reformers produced what they
called the Book of Homilies. Really, it's a book of sermons,
and these were to be read in parish churches where the minister
was so incompetent. He wouldn't be able to preach
a sermon, And so what happened when the people gathered they
would read or they would have the word of God read to them
and they would have one of those homilies also read to them. And something similar also occurred
in the principalities there in what we now call Germany and
Luther therefore produced what he called his church postul. like the homilies, sermons to
be read to the congregations. And I was reading his Church
Postle on Luke chapter 2 and verses 1 to 14, which is of course
what we have here earlier in this Gospel of Luke, and it concerns
the birth of Christ and the angelic visitation to those shepherds
who were watching flock at watching over their flock by night. And there in Luke 2.12 we are
told how the angels uttered these words to the shepherds. These
shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped
in swaddling bands, lying in a manger. These shall be a sign
onto you. And in particular the reference
there to a sign, and what Luther does, I found it very interesting,
he then allegorizes that that the angels are saying, you know,
if we go back to the early church amongst the church fathers, much
of their preaching on the scriptures was allegorized. They take the
Bible and they use it as an allegory. And this is what Luther does
with regards to that message from the angels. He says of the swaddling bands,
this shall be a sign unto you, you shall find the babe wrapped
in swaddling bands. Luther says concerning those swaddling bands
that they are equivalent to the scriptures of the Old Testament.
I'll find the babe wrapped in swaddling bands and the bands
are an allegory of the scriptures of the Old Testament. And he
says, law and prophets cannot be rightly preached and known
unless we see Christ wrapped up in them. It's a strange interpretation
we might say. I find allegory Not easy, really. Of course, I suppose, the great
allegory we're familiar with is that of the pilgrim's progress. But we wouldn't normally allegorize
Scripture, but one does wonder just what is the significance
of what those angels are saying when they refer to a sign. But that's how Luther interprets
it. And he makes a very telling point
when he says that We can only understand the Old
Testament when we see that it is that that wraps up Christ,
as it were, just like those swaddling bands. And as you know, time
and again, when we read through the Gospels, we see how things
happened because what was written in the Scriptures had to be accomplished. For example, if we go back here
to chapter 22, and verse 37 the Lord says I say unto you that
this that is written this that is written must yet be accomplished
in mercy and he was reckoned among the transgressors quoting
Isaiah 53.12, for the things concerning me have an end. What is written? Written in the
Old Testament concerns the Lord Jesus Christ and it must therefore
have its fulfillment in him. Again, when the Lord comes to
the end of his sufferings in John's account, there in John
19.28, we're told Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished,
that the Scripture might be fulfilled. that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
he says, I thirst. The Lord Jesus Christ then is
that one who is clearly the key to unlock the real meaning of
the Old Testament Scriptures. But also that one of course who
unlocks to us all of the Scriptures. Here at the beginning of verse
44 he says, these are the words which I spoke unto you. And we
have this record, of course, of his words here in the in the
fourfold gospel, but also doesn't the Spirit, as he promises, he
said in John 14, the Spirit will bring to mind all those things
that he had said unto the apostles. And so all of the New Testament
is the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why I don't like
these red-letter editions of the Bible that are now quite
popular. They're certainly popular in
the USA, and if you buy a Bible and it's printed in America,
you'll find that great chunks of the Gospels are in red letters,
because those, they say, are the words that were spoken by
the Lord Jesus, as if those words are more significant than other
words. But it's all the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
all concerns the Lord Jesus Christ, the written Word. And the only
way we can understand any of the Scripture is by seeing it
in relationship to Him who is the Word of God incarnate. He is the key. He is the key. And He is the one who has to
bring that key to us, as it were, to unlock these treasures. as
we have it here in verse 45, "...then opened it their understanding,
that they might understand the Scriptures." It's only the Lord
Jesus Himself who can give us the right understanding and the
true interpretation of the Word of God. Now, the word that we
have here, understanding, It refers to the mind. It refers
to that faculty of reason that God has given to us as human
beings. And we need to remember that
it is the mind that is the entrance to the soul, because God made
man a rational being. Think of the language again that
we have in the 32nd Psalm. Be ye not as the horse or as
the mule that hath no understanding, whose mouth must be held in by
bit and bridle. Don't be like the brute beast.
The psalmist says, under inspiration from God, you have a mind. And when we come to the New Testament,
what does Paul say? concerning believers, God has
not given us the spirit of fear, He says, but of power, and of
love, and of a sound mind. The believer is favored then
by God in that he has a sound mind. The mind, like every other
part of our human nature, every faculty of our soul, the mind
is fallen. The fall has permeated all that
we are as human beings, but it is a great favour. God has given
us the spirit, not of fear, but of power, he says, and of love,
and of a sound mind. Remember, when the apostle is
writing to the church at Corinth, it was a church that was remarkably
gifted, there were those what we call charismatic gifts or
better call them apostolic gifts because they are gifts associated
really with the days and the ministry of the apostles but
there was a great abusing of these gifts in that church and
I'm sure you've read through the 14th chapter and see how
Paul is there rebuking them and correcting them and what does
he say? Look at the language that we find in 1 Corinthians
14 verse 6 for example. He says, Now brethren, if I come
unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except
I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge,
or by prophesying, or by doctrine? They made much, you see, of this
remarkable gift of tongues. disability, it seems, to speak
a proper language without any previous knowledge of that language. But they're abusing it, and so
Paul says again at verse 9 there, Likewise ye, except ye utter
by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known
what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air. And then again at verse 11, Therefore,
if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him
that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian
unto me. And so he says later, verse 19,
In the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand
words in an unknown time. He is simply saying, you see,
that we have to properly communicate one to the other. We have to
communicate truth one to another. And so we have to address each
other's understanding. The Swami says, with regards
to the worship of God, Sing ye praises with understanding. And
again in that chapter that we were just referring to, that
14th chapter, in 1 Corinthians, Paul says something very similar
to the psalmist, I will pray with the spirit, he says, and
I will pray with the understanding also, I will sing with the spirit,
and I will sing with the understanding also. And so we are to recognize
the importance of our minds, and the use of our minds, and
having a right and a true understanding of the things that God is saying
to us, the truth that God is communicating to us here in His
Word, when Paul writes his various epistles. At times, as you're
aware, he reasons with the people. He did this when he was exercising
his ministry in the Acts. He'd go to the synagogues and
he would reason with them of righteousness and so forth. And here we see it is the Lord
who must really open up to us the Word of God. He opened their
understanding, it says, that they might understand the Scriptures. Calvin makes the observation
that that statement in verse 45 is to be paralleled with words
that we have in John. The words that we have in John
chapter 20 and verse 22 when it says, He breathed on them
and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Calvin lays
those two verses side by side and says the one verse interprets
the other. How did the Lord open their understanding? By breathing upon them, by communicating
to them the ministry of the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost of
course He is God, he is the third person in the Trinity but in
the outworking of the great covenant of grace he comes as the spirit
of Christ. He comes to take of the things
of Christ and to reveal them to men. But where the Holy Ghost works
is not just a matter of opening the understanding and giving
a sound mind. There's something more than that.
We need more than what people refer to as a Sandemanian faith. The word Sandemanian, it's a
reference to a Scottish Baptist minister back in the 18th century,
Robert Sanderman, who taught that faith is simply mental assent. You read the scriptures and you
believe in the sense that you assent to what's being said. with your mind. And it goes no
further than that. It's just a notional thing. It's
just something in the head. The Sandimanian faith. But surely
when it comes to faith, it's not just a matter of the mind,
it's also a matter of the heart and of the will. The emotions
are involved and we see that. We see that in what we're told
concerning those two on the road to Emmaus previously here at
verse 32. After their eyes were opened,
remember their eyes were holed and they didn't recognize this
stranger, it was in fact the Lord Jesus. And he makes himself
known to them in the breaking of bread with them. And then
their eyes are opened and they knew him and he vanishes out
of their sight and what is their response? They said one to another,
did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by
the way and while he opened to us the scriptures? Or when the
Lord comes and opens to us the word of God. It's not just a
matter of our minds. It's much more than that. It's an experience. True religion
is more than notion. Something must be known. and felt or when the Lord comes
and opens to us the word and as I said he is the cure once
he begins to unlock the word once he begins to unlock our
hearts as it were and so I want us to as we draw to a conclusion
to notice the great promise of the new covenant what is the
promise of the new covenant? And we have it there in the 8th
chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle makes
reference to the language of Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 8 verse 10. This is the covenant, he's quoting
from Jeremiah 31 this is the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put
my laws into their minds and write them in their hearts and
I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people and they
shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother
saying no the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the
greatest for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Well,
this is the New Covenant, this is the Gospel, this is the grace
of God, and God says, I will put my law into their mind and
write them in their hearts. It's both the mind and the heart. And it's the work of God. It's
the work of God. God must do the work. Go and
think of the words of the Lord Jesus in John 6, it is written
in the Prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh
unto me. They're all taught of God. He's
not only referring to Jeremiah 31 there, but also to Isaiah
54 and verse 13. That is the promise of the New
Covenant. God does the work. And where
does God do his work? God does his work in the soul. That faith that is of the operation
of God is something that comes into the soul of a man. But God, having made us rational
beings, as I said just now, it is the mind that is the entrance
into the soul. or we might say it comes from
here and it comes to here, it comes from the head into the
heart. This is how God deals with us. What are we by nature? Well, we're dead in trespasses
and sins we're told, having the understanding darkened, alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us because
of the blindness or the hardness of our hearts. the carnal mind. He's mentioned, it's his same
word, this word noose, understanding or mind. The carnal mind, that's
the natural mind. His enmity against God is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. and so the natural man receives
not the things of the Spirit of God they are foolishness to
him neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned but God comes and here is God you see the Lord Jesus
God manifest in the flesh dealing with his disciples opening their
understanding that they might understand the scriptures Well,
God must do all the work. It is God, of course, Himself
who comes to begin that great work in the soul. Isaiah says,
Thou also hast wrought all our works in us. O Lord our God,
are the Lords beside Thee of our dominion over us? By Thee
only will we make mention of Thy Name. How can we sincerely
make mention of that Name? No man can say that Jesus Christ
is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, by the only. Will we make mention
of thy name? For that new man of grace, he
is renewed in knowledge, it says, after the image of him that created
him. And what is the consequence?
Where we know that renewing and that enlightening that ministry
that comes by the Spirit of God well the first thing the first
thing that we feel surely is our native darkness we feel what
we are we feel our complete and utter impotence that's where the Lord begins
with us he makes us feel something of what we are the Lord Jesus
comes to call the sinner and not the righteous to repent How many remain in ignorance?
They think they see. Wasn't that the case with those
Pharisees? How the Lord speaks of them there
at the end of the 9th chapter in John's Gospel where the Lord
gives sight to the man born blind and they put him out of the synagogue. because he confesses Christ.
And the Lord speaks those words at the end of that ninth chapter. For judgment I am coming to this
world that they which see not might see, and that they which
see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which
were with him heard these words and said unto him, Are we blind
also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were
blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, We see. Therefore
your sin remaineth. Oh, they were so ignorant of
what they were, and so ignorant of what their needs were. If
the light that is in thee be darkness, says Christ. How great
is that darkness! Oh, it is the Lord himself who
who must open the understanding, who must open the heart. He is
the key to it all, is He not? We should be those who desire
always to come to Him. Everyone that doeth evil, He
says, hateth the light. Neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. He that doeth truth cometh to
the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God. and as we come under the Word
of God this is what we desire that we might be searched and
sifted through and through by the Lord Jesus that He would
come by His Spirit and apply His truth to us and open our
understandings and that we might be brought to see that Christ
is here in all the Scriptures I remember right the first time John Warburton
went to hear William Gadsby in that chapel in Manchester he
went in somewhat of a critical spirit he thought the man standing
in the pulpit looked a little bit like a clown but when Gadsby
started and announced his text and began to explain how he was
going to handle that work I think he said something like this he
was going to ransack the Bible that he might present to that
people the Lord Jesus Christ or that we might come to God's
word in that sort of a spirit that we want to find the Lord
Jesus Christ and we want him to come and to unlock to us all
the wonders that are contained in this blessed book. Well the
Lord Bless His Word to us tonight. Now let us sing our second praise,
the hymn 975, the tune is Saint Saviour 228. He comes the Saviour
full of grace, by ancient prophets sung, the
smile of mercy on his face and truth upon his tongue." The Hymn
975.