he mentioned my name, I just
about forgot it. Frank and I have been pacing
since daylight, and that's just how it is in
the ministry. Years ago, over a hundred years
ago, There was a Scottish reformed
church, very prim and proper. A high pulpit, you know, you
had to, David was describing to me one of those, and that's
how those churches were built. And back in the day, the elders
of the church all sat across here on the left of the pastor.
And Pastor McDougal, got up to preach. And he gave his introduction. And Elder McKenzie was sitting
there on the end. He said, that's John Gill. And Pastor McDougall just kind
of looked at him and went on with his introduction. And McKenzie
said, that's John Owens. And this time he kind of cut
his eyes down at him, you know. Went on with his preaching and
he said, that's Benjamin Keech. The boy pastor stepped aside
and he said, McKenzie, he said, one more word out of you and
I'm going to have you escorted out. McKenzie said, that's McDougal. So if I say something this morning
out of way, that's Darwin. If I say something, I'll bless
your heart. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. My message this morning is in
Luke chapter 24. And here's the title. It's all in the way you see it. Luke 24 records the last days
of our Lord's presence on this earth after His resurrection.
A lot of folks don't know our Lord spent 30 days, more than
30 days, after His resurrection. He did that to establish the
fact that He was risen. Somebody didn't steal away His
body and say He was risen. like the Jews paid the soldiers
to say, he was risen. And when Paul speaks of it in
1 Corinthians 15, he tells us that he was seen not only of
the apostles and disciples and the women, but he was seen of
above 500 brethren at one time. So when we talk about the resurrection
of Christ, we're talking about a matter of historical fact as
well as the declaration of the Word of God. So this records
all of those things. And the women had been to the
tomb and they'd heard from the angels standing before them in
glistening white and spoke to them about the Lord and His resurrection. And they went back and reported
to the eleven and said the stone's been rolled back and he's not
there and two angels spoke to us. And they went, you know,
wonder what you've been drinking. They didn't believe me. They
didn't believe me. It says their words seem to be
as idle tales. And they believed them not. All
but Peter. Peter ran down to the tomb. And
sure enough, the stone had been rolled back, and there were no
guards there. And he bent down and looked up
in the tomb, and there was the grave clothes, folded neatly
and laid on the stone. And he departed, wondering in
himself at what he'd seen and what must have taken place. And
then two of his disciples, they went that same day to a little
village called Emmaus. It was about 10 miles from Jerusalem. Pretty good walk, 10 miles. And
they walked along the way and they exchanged their ideas back
and forth about all the events that had taken place. The women,
the angels, the stone, Peter having gone down there, they
were going back and forth and back and forth. And they were
trying to make some sense out of the death of Christ. You ever
been there? You ever wondered in yourself? and trying to make sense out
of it? That's where these men were. And as they walked along, they
kind of exchanged their ideas back and forth and trying to
make some sense out of the death of Christ and that empty tomb. And this is where our Lord picks
them up. They got their head down. They're
sad. Don't understand what had taken
place. And he comes up behind them,
but he don't let them know who he is. He withholds their sight
so they don't know him. He acts as a stranger. And he listens to them for a
minute. He's walking along, and he said, what on earth are you
talking about? And they said, where have you
been? Where have you been? Everybody
knows what's taking place. Everybody knows what's taking
place. Are you a stranger? And they began to spin their
sad tale. how that he'd appeared to them
and went about doing good and healing the sick and giving sight
to the blind and all the things we've talked about. All those
things. And then our Lord spoke to them. But before I go any further,
let me just take a few minutes and say a few things that I believe
will help you to understand my text. Let me begin by saying
that Jesus Christ was then and is now the full embodiment of
God Almighty. He wasn't just, he was anointed
of God, but he wasn't just anointed of God. He was God. He is God. This is God come into the flesh. You ever wonder what God, how
God feels toward a sinner? Look to Christ. That's how God
feels toward sinners. You ever wonder if God could
be compassionate to a sinner? Look to Christ. This is God. Now what he told Thomas? He said,
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And from now on,
you know the Father. Paul wrote to the Colossian church
and said, in him, in him, don't listen to these philosophers,
don't listen to these scientists, don't listen to these false prophets. He said, in him, in Christ dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete
in him. fullness of the Father, and fullness
of the Spirit. John the Baptist said, he whom
God hath called, he speaks the words of God. He speaks the words
of God, for God giveth not the Spirit unto him by measure. He didn't measure out a little
bit. He is the Spirit. You want to know something about
the Spirit of God? don't go down to a pentecostal church they
don't know anything at all about the spirit of God you want to
know something about the spirit of God you look to Jesus Christ
that's the embodiment of the spirit of God he said when he's
come when our Lord ascended up to glory he said I'm going to
send you I'm going to pray to the Father and he's going to
send you the Holy Spirit and when he's come he's not going
to speak about himself you'll take the things of mine and show
them unto you. Jesus Christ is the only manifestation
of God that this world is ever going to have. I'm telling you,
you throw all them dreams and visions and all that kind of
stuff, you just get rid of them. That's not of God. This is the
only manifestation of God this world is ever going to get, is
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Word made flesh and
dwelt among us. That's what John said, and we
saw His glory. The glory is of the only begotten
of the Father. So the Lord Jesus Christ as a
man is the full embodiment of God. Secondly, if Jesus Christ is
not God, come into the flesh. If he's not God come into the
flesh, he cannot be the promised Messiah and the Redeemer of Israel. He can't be. A little known fact
in the professing church of our day is that God set forth the
Redeemer in the Old Testament with 14 names. Every one of them
was a compound of Jehovah. Jehovah God. His name shall be
called, who's he talking about? He's talking about Christ. His
name shall be called Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness,
God our righteousness. Isn't that what he said? Isn't
that what Paul said? The righteousness of God. His name shall be called Jehovah
Shalom, the Lord our peace, God our peace. His name should be
called Jehovah Rea, the Lord our Shepherd. Jehovah Kedesh,
the Lord our Sanctification. And on and on the list goes.
Fourteen names, but perhaps one of the best descriptions that
I ever read and the most simple declarations and descriptions
of Christ ever given is in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. Now y'all
know that very well. You know that unto us a child
is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon
his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful. Boy, I tell
you, you want to look at him. And he'd be wonderful in your
heart. I was thinking as he preached,
ah, wonderful. Counselor, the mighty God, the
everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And then Paul in 1
Timothy 1 says his apostleship was of Jesus Christ by the commandment
of God our Savior. He's God. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he is in
God. All right, that's the second
thing, here's the third. Because Jesus is the Son of God,
the eternal Word made flesh, he cannot possibly fail in his
work. He's God. Now if you've got a
God that can fail, you don't know the living God. He can't
fail. He can't fail. Whatever Christ
came to do, He did. He did. He did not live under
the laws of our representative and not provide us with a perfect
righteousness. If He did not provide us with
that righteousness, and that's why He came under that law, then
He failed. But He can't fail, He's God. He did not suffer and die on
the cross and fail in His attempt to redeem. He redeemed. He redeemed. Jesus Christ came
into this world, Paul said, to save sinners, and every sinner
He came to save, He's going to call. He's going to regenerate. He's going to lead them to repentance.
He's going to give them saving faith and he's going to preserve
them under the day of salvation. Peter said we're begotten again
by a living hope, a resurrected hope. He come out of the tomb.
That's what this story's all about. And my hope's seated at the right
hand of God. He's seated at the right hand
of God. We're begotten again unto a lively
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance,
incorruptible and undefiled. Now listen, and don't fade away. Reserved in heaven for you who
are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed at the last day. All right, now let me get
back to my text, Luke 24. The Lord Jesus had, as he had
clearly told them, rose from the dead. Now the disciples didn't
fully understand what was going on. I know Peter confessed it,
but he did not yet fully understand what he confessed. If he had,
he wouldn't have pulled his sword to defend him. He'd have got
behind him. Huh? You got a savior you have
to defend. You got one that you're afraid
somebody's going to hurt him. Peter didn't understand fully.
He didn't understand. He knew, but he didn't know. And he wouldn't have went back
to his nets after he died if he fully understood what he was
telling him. And then in our text here in
Luke 24 verse 13, two of his disciples were walking down the
road to Emmaus and they were discussing the events of the
day and of their master's death. And they were confused and depressed
and disappointed and to say the least, discouraged. Why? Why? The greatest transaction
in eternity had just taken place. That for which the world was
formed. That for which the stage was
set. And the day had come and this
great transaction had taken place. And they were going down the
road, whatever happened. So sad. So sad. So sad. Why? Why was they so sad? Greatest transaction in eternity
had just taken place and they act like they thought all their
hopes were flushed down the drain. Gone. Why weren't they rejoicing? Why
weren't these men praising God and thanking God? Why weren't
these men marveling at the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ? How come? False religion. That's why. That's why. These men were brought up in
Jewish legalism. They were brought up in traditional
ceremonialism. These men were brought up believing
that they could produce a righteousness by their own obedience to the
law. And by that righteousness they could win favor with God.
These men were brought up believing that because they were Abraham's
blood kin, they were covenant heirs of the grace of God. These
men were brought up believing that the Messiah was going to
come and he was going to be a relative of David, a direct descendant
of David. They knew where he was going
to be born. They knew all the facts. And they thought when
he comes, God is going to bless him like he did David. And they
were going to shut off that Roman rule and they were going to shut
off all these idolaters and God was going to raise Israel back
up to its former state and glory. That's what they thought. Though our Lord taught them who
He was and why He came and what He came to do and all the things
that I talked about the other night, yet they were ignorant
of the glory of God as if it was being manifested. And here
it is, it's being manifested right before their eyes. Why? Because they tried to mix
his words with what they thought they knew. Huh? Why do we get discouraged? Same
thing. Same reason. We were raised in
that junk and can't get rid of it. Can't get rid of it. Try
to mix his words with their traditional understanding and his death become
a source of disappointment, confusion, and depression. My generation
looks on the death of Christ in just about the same way. They
see his death as a last chance effort. He don't know what else
to do, so he sent his son. Sent his son. It's just a last chance effort
to save men and women who just simply don't want to be saved. My generation looks on the death
of Christ as a down payment on a house in glory that if you
want to go, you have to assume the payments. My generation looks on the death
of Christ as insufficient to reconcile them to God without
the exercise of their will. They say that for his death to
be effectual, you must add to it your will, your works, your
devotion, and especially your money. His death was a good effort,
they say, an honorable effort. He was a humanitarian. He went
about doing good. But in the end, it was just an
effort. My generation looks on the death
of Christ in pity, a great man doing the best he could do, but
ultimately failing and falling short of the mark. Why don't they see the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ? Why don't they see it? Why do
they not see the honor and the love and the grace and the glory
of God in his death? Paul gives you the answer in
2 Corinthians 4, 3 and 4. If our gospel be hid, it's hid
to the lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the
minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ should shine unto them. The disciples were so indoctrinated
in traditional religion, that religion of the Jews and the
teaching of the rabbis that they could not perceive of a spiritual
kingdom, a spiritual Jew, spiritual circumcision. They could not
conceive of it. A heavenly king or deliverer
who himself must bear their sins in his own body on a tree, they
couldn't conceive of it. Oh, beloved, religion is a deadly
thing. Boy, I hope when your sons and
daughters go off to school and there's no Grace Church there,
and they call home and say, well, I'm going to go down here to
Baptist Church, I hope you don't think in your heart that, well,
at least they're going to church. They're stepping in a rattlesnake's
nest. That's what they're doing. Our Lord called these men false
prophets. He called them bipers, hypocrites,
blind leaders of the blind. He called the most self-righteous
people to ever profess to know God. He called these men, listen
to me, children of the devil. God was your father. He said
you wouldn't be talking to me like that. If Abraham was your
father, you wouldn't be talking to me like that either. Abraham
didn't do that. Satanic religion, Antichrist
religion will always be revealed, now listen to me, by the way
they project the life and death and resurrection of Christ. You
want to know if they know God, you listen to what they have
to say about his life, and his death and his resurrection. I tell you, everything you need
to know. The disciples, believing that
salvation was up to them, that salvation was by their works
and devotion and consecration, could not see the necessity or
the sufficiency of the death of Christ. Now let me tell you
something. Our Lord went gloriously down
to the cross. I hope you don't read the story
of the cross and pity him. He went glorious. To this hour
came I into this world. Our Lord went glorious. He dragged
his cross along the way and people looked on him and wept and they
saw that crown of thorns shoved down and the blood trickled down
his face. His face had been slapped and
red and bruised and his back plowed with the whip and they
just bawled and wept And he stopped and he said, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves, weep for
your children. He went gloriously down to the
cross. Oh, how his enemies tried to
make his death a shameful death, a disgraceful death, a despicable
death, a degrading death. They wanted his death to be a
contradiction. of everything he claimed to be. They hoped by an ignominious
death to destroy his reputation and disassemble his following
and put him out of their memories forever. That's what they wanted
to do. But in spite of the malice of
his enemies, he went gloriously down to the cross. Being found in fashion as a man,
Paul said, he humbled himself and become obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God hath highly exalted
him, and given him that name above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee is going to bow, every tongue is going
to confess, He saved sinners to the glory of God the Father.
You can do it now or you can do it at judgment, but you're
going to do it. You're going to bow down before Him. And our
Lord came unto those two disciples as they walked and talked and
joined Himself with them and He said, Why are you talking
this way? Why are you so disappointed? Why are you so depressed? And
after a few words, They said to him, they said, well, the
chief priest and rulers delivered Jesus to be condemned to death,
and they took him out and crucified him. But we thought, ain't that where
trouble starts? We thought. Can I tell you something? May
God be true, and all the rest of us be liars. We thought. Listen to this, and
we trusted. We sold out. We trusted that
it had been He which should have delivered Israel. And He let
them go. He let them talk. When they had
finished talking, our Lord said to them, and slow of heart. That's where
the trouble is, isn't it? To believe all that the prophets
have said about me. And they must have had a quizzical
look on his face when they looked at him. And He said, ought not Christ
to have suffered these things and enter into His glory? Ain't
that why He came? Ain't that why He came? To suffer?
To take our place before a holy God? And bear our sins in His
own body? Ain't that why He came? Ought
not Christ to have suffered these things and enter into His glory?
All my soul, when Jesus Christ came into this world, God said
by his appearance, behold, I come. I come. In the volume of the
book, it's written to me to do thy will, O God. I'm going to tell you something.
When he cried, it's finished, everything God sent him to do
was fully accomplished. It does. The law was exalted and honored.
The justice of God was satisfied. The wrath of God burned itself
out on the Lord Jesus Christ. It can't burn itself out with
all the unbelievers and false prophets and devils in hell.
That wrath will burn forever. But it burned itself out on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Religion does not leave the sinner
rejoicing. It leaves him in fear and shaking. That's where they want you. That's
where they want you. It leaves them in disappointment. Because they really don't believe
that Jesus Christ accomplished anything. Isn't that where these men were
at? They loved him as a man. It leaves you discouraged and
disappointed because it really doesn't purchase anything. It leaves him depressed because
it says to him, God's done all he can do. That's all up to you. Oh, I hope that's not your hope
here today. hearing and seeing his disciples
this way, our Lord began at Moses. In the beginning, God. He went to the fall in the garden. He went to the ark. He went to
the destruction of the world. He went to Babylon. He went to
Abraham. He went all the way through every
book in the Old Testament. I preached one night and I was
preaching on the overview, just an overview of Israel and how
those things were in connection, a picture, a figure of his church. And Don called Larry and said,
what did Darwin preach on the other night? He said the whole
Old Testament. That's what our Lord preached to these men, the
whole Old Testament. 10-mile journey, every step. And you know what? They didn't
get tired of listening. They was amazed. They sat there
amazed. They were just dumb-pounded by
the things that he said. Oh, I can't believe a man told
me that. And he's going on and on and on. What wisdom this man
has. And he's telling them and he's
pointing all of these things out. He's pointing all of these
things out that were pictures of Christ and how Christ was
set forth to be the propitiation for our sins. You quoted it a
while ago there in Romans 3.24. He pointed that out to them. And when they finally arrived
where they were going, he vanished out of their sight. And they looked at each other
and they said, boy, didn't our hearts burn within us? They never looked at his death
the same way again. Huh? It's all in the way you
see it. All in the way you see it. Thank you.