We'll go back to Luke 24. Love
this story. Love the Gospel, don't you? Again,
we're looking at it again. So did these disciples again. He told them again and again
and again the same thing. To write the same thing, to preach
the same thing to you. It's not great, Mr. Miller. This
is life. Words of life. These two disciples
Verse 13, two of them, they were disciples, believers, one named
Cleopas. They were walking together to
a village called Emmaus, a little small town from Jerusalem, about
seven miles, seven miles, eight miles. They were walking together
and they were talking. They were walking and talking
together about these things. You know, Amos 3, 3 says, can
two walk together? Except they be agreed. These two disciples were together.
The other disciples were together, weren't they? Walking and talking. Who do you
walk with? Who do you talk with? Who are
your companions? David said, I'm a companion of
them that fear Thee. That's who I walk with. That's
who I talk with. They were walking, they were talking of these things. In Deuteronomy, Moses wrote to
the children of Israel. He said, God had him write these
things. He said, these words I command
thee. These words shall be in thine heart. He said, teach them
diligently unto thy children and talk of them when you sit
in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down
and rise up. And he went on in Deuteronomy
32 to say, these are not vain words. These are your life. To walk and talk with those whom
you can have true communion and fellowship with. God's people. They were together. They were
together. Two of them. What did our Lord
say about two or three gathered together? What did He say? He cannot lie. He said, where
two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I. There am I. So they were talking. They were
walking along. And it says in verse 15, while they communed
together, He Himself, the Lord Jesus Himself, drew near and
went with them. Is He here this morning? Well,
I hope there are two or three in here this morning from their
hearts. It won't be everybody, but I
hope there's at least two or three here gathered in His name
who really want to hear Him and see His glory. Because if there
are two or three here, He is here. He is here. Though hidden. He was hidden
from their eyes. They couldn't see Him. He was
there. He was there in the form of a preacher. They thought all this time that
he was preaching, they just thought he was a preacher. But they were
hearing from the Lord, weren't they? And they, in the end, they
begged that preacher. They sought that preacher. Abide
with us. Stay. Don't leave. Oh, don't
let the gospel lead this place. Well, they were communing together
and they were sad. Look at verse 17. Our Lord said,
what manner of communications are these that you have one another
as you walk and are sad? What are you communing? What
are you talking about that's making you sad? They were sad. Now, our Lord
said they would be. Go back forward to John 16. This is what He said to them
before this. was taken, delivered, and crucified,
and buried. John 16, do you have it? He told
them this before he went to the cross, and he's told us this
over and over again. Look at verse 16. He said, A
little while you shall not see me, and again, a little while
you shall see me, because I go to the Father. And some of the
disciples among themselves said, What is this? He said, A little
while you shall not see me. What do you mean, fellas? He'd
been telling them from the beginning, from the day that he chose him,
he'd been telling them the same thing. Who he was, why he came,
what he was come to do, what he was going to do, where he's
going to go, and if he's going to come back. Same thing. Right? You've read it. Nod your
head. Yes, that's why he came. Because this is why He came.
Not to make their life pleasant, but to save their souls from
sin. And there's one way that He could do that. By being crucified. That's why He came. Now they were sad. Look at verse,
when He was going away, verse 18. They said, what is this? We cannot tell. A little while.
We cannot tell what He's saying. Now, Jesus knew that they were
desirous to ask Him, and He said unto them, Do you inquire among
yourselves of that I said a little while, and ye shall not see me,
and again a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily,
truly, I say unto you, ye shall weep and lament, and so shall
we. In this world we have tribulation
and sorrow. Weeping will endure for a night. My brothers and sisters, We're
here early in the morning. Joy comes in the morning. How? Where does joy come from?
A reigning, ruling, risen Lord. And remembering, and having brought
to our remembrance all things that He said, His exceeding precious
promises. He told us again and again and
again that our joy might be full. Read on, verse 20. He said, You
shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and you
shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned unto joy. A woman, and he gave this illustration,
a woman when she is in travail has sorrow. Because her hour
has come, and as soon as she's delivered of the child, remembereth
no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. Now therefore have sorrow, but
I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice in your joy,
and no man taketh from you ever again." So back to our text. So they
were sad. They didn't see him. It was John
Newton that wrote the hymn, How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours,
when the Lord Jesus no longer I see. Sweet birds, sweet prospects,
sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. And sorrow,
sadness, troubles in this world. We lose sight of our Lord living,
sun shining in the darkness. And you know what causes us our
greatest grief and sadness and trouble and sorrow? You know
what it is? Unbelief. Unbelief. They were troubled. They were
troubled. They were sad as they were walking
and talking. And down in verse 37, when He
did appear to them again, it says they were terrified, defrighted,
scared to death. Suppose they'd seen a spirit.
He said, why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your
heart? Meaning, why are you thinking the worst? Why are you imagining
things? Who and what are you afraid of? I'm here. It is I. Everything they went
through, He did it. Every storm, every trouble, everything
He sent them, every sorrow, every sadness, He sent it. Why? For they're good. They're good. They forgot that. Why? How's that good? How's trouble? Because if we didn't have trouble,
we'd want to stay here. He kept telling him, I'm not
of this world. I didn't come to stay here. I
came to do a work for you. And I'm leaving, going back to
prepare a place for you. And if I go, I'll come again,
receive you again unto myself. And you're not of this world.
And I'm going to send you through nothing but tribulation. Tribulation,
trouble, mingle with some happiness. But mostly trouble. Why? Because
this is not where you're staying. Stir up the nest, put thorns
in the nest so that you little fledglings will fly away. So they were sad and troubled
and they communed together. They were full of unbelief. Look
at verse 21. Here's what they said. They said,
verse 18, this is amazing. Are you a stranger in Jerusalem
and you don't know these things? Who's talking like they're a
stranger? Who's the one talking like they were a stranger to
the covenant? How about us? Do we ever talk
like we hadn't heard a thing the Lord has told us? Isn't all our fears and worries
and trouble just unbelief? Isn't it? After all the Lord
has promised us? Exceeding precious promises. Are you a stranger? No, you have
forgotten. You're the ones, oh foolish disciples,
you're the ones that have forgotten what He said. And our unbelief
is what gives us so much confusion and so much trouble and such
lack of peace and joy and comfort, our unbelief, because we've let
His words slip. We've forgotten what He said.
We've forgotten our troubled thoughts and confusion, mostly
due to forgetting His Word, His truth. The world is in darkness
and bitterness and anguish of spirit. God's people should not
be. Right? Paul said in everything give
thanks. He said rejoice evermore. Rejoice and again I say rejoice.
Where was he when he wrote that? In prison. Why? Who put him there? God did. He realized that. The world's in darkness and anguish
and dimness and troubled Have no peace? Our Lord said there
won't be. They won't have any peace. No
peace. But He kept telling His disciples over and over and over
again, fear not. Fear not. He appeared to them
three times after He arose and every time He said, peace be
unto you. Peace. He came, Brother John,
He came to make peace. These false prophets are telling
people all over the world whom God is angry with under the wrath
of God. They're telling them, God's not
angry with you. Yes, He is too. That's why everything
that's happening is happening. Yes, He is too. But to God's
people, I can tell you, God is not angry with you. God has peace with you. How?
Why? You know why, don't you? You
know why, don't you? You know why, don't you? Why?
Because you made your peace with God? Oh, no. That Jesus Christ
made peace by the blood of His cross. And everybody believes
that, believes Him. And He is our peace. Smile. God loves you. And everything
that happens, He's saying it in love, in mercy, in grace,
for your good. You're going to see real soon,
and your sorrows are going to be turned to joy. And you're
going to say, why did I ever doubt Him? How could I? I'm such a fool. Such a fool. How can true disciples get in
such a way? How could they, after all He
said? Talking sad things, aren't we? They said, look at this unbelief
in their language. They said, He said what things? They said concerning Jesus of
Nazareth. They never called Him that. They
never called Him that in person. They called Him Lord. Right? He's a prophet. Prophet? I knew him better than that.
Mighty indeed in word. Mighty! He told them all powers
given unto me in heaven and earth. I'm your Lord. The chief priests
and our rulers delivered him. The priests delivered him. God
delivered him. You see, they had forgotten,
and this was the worst thing that they thought could possibly
happen. These were the darkest days of their lives, these three
days when our Lord seemed to be dead. They thought, look what's
happened to Him. They were sad and troubled because
of what men had done to Jesus. They should have been praising
God, believing, just waiting on Him to rise. He told them. Look what great things God has
done. And we're just waiting to see
it's accomplished. It's going to be said so. That's
what they should have thought. But no, they're all sad and troubled
because look what's going on. Oh no, look what men are doing. Are you with me? Look what's
happening. Yes, look what's happening. God's
doing it. You just wait. You'll see. The sun's about to
rise. He's on his way. And these certain poor women
came and tried to tell him he's risen. They didn't believe them. And our Lord, through what they
thought was a preacher, said in verse 25, O fools, Slow to heart, to believe. Oh, the prophets have spoken.
Oh, fools. Now, we should never call our
brother or our sister a fool. But I tell you what, you need
to think of yourself as a fool. Yes, you do. Yes, we do. When
we act and talk and walk and speak like we've never heard
a word of God's truth, Worried and fearful and untrusting and
doubtful and just full of thoughts arise in our head and we forget
completely that God is doing everything that's being done.
That Christ came for a purpose to fulfill it and we're in Him
and everything about us has been purposed by Him, ordered and
sure and it's all being accomplished for our good. He said that. How
many times does He have to tell us Romans 8.28? All things work
together for good. How many times we have to hear
that? I know we forget so soon don't we? We're full of doubts
and fear and I'm hollering at myself. Simon Peter was. Simon Peter,
Rock, Simon Peter, James, John, Thomas, Matthew, all of them
were full of doubts and fear. All of them weren't they? And
so are we, every one of us. What's wrong with us? We're so
foolish. We're so fickle. We're finite
in our understanding, aren't we? Slow of heart. Slow of heart to believe. See
what the hard men believe. We know these things in our head.
The Lord has to put them in our heart. Slow of heart to believe. We believe. We're quicker by
nature to believe what men say than God. And I hate it. Don't
you hate it? You know what they said? No.
What? Oh no. So what are you talking about?
Who are you walking with? Who are you talking to? What
are you talking about? Is it sad things? Are you with me? Who are you
listening to? Turn them off. Don't talk about what sad things
men are doing. Talk about what great things
God has done and is doing and yet shall do. Talk about the
fact that He's coming real soon. You're going to see Him. Every
eye is going to see Him. Let's talk about that. That won't
make us sad. It'll make us fat. He said, call them fools. The
Lord can call us fools because that's what we are. Slow of heart. David, remember Psalm 73. That's why these Psalms are so
precious to us. David said, I've cleansed my
hands in vain. I've walked out of my religions
in vain. He said, the world has no troubles, and people have
all that their eyes stand at with fatness, and God's people
have got nothing but trouble. And he said, oh, he said, the
waters of full cup are hung out to God's people while the world
have everything in the world. And he said, is it all in vain? He said, until I went into the
sanctuary. And Nathan got up. An angel spoke to him. Nathan. And you know what David said?
Oh, I was worse than a beast. He said, oh, how foolish I was. He said, I'm with Him. He said,
I'm ever with Him. The world's got the world. What
do they get? What's coming to the world? That's
what Abraham said. Abraham was the first father
of the faithful. And Abraham said, Lord, look,
Lot's got Sodom. Lot's got Sodom. Abraham said,
what do I get? Shade from Sodom. That's what. And he said, you'll get a what? You'll get me. I'm thy great reward. You're
going to be with me, and I'm going to be with you, and someday
when all this trouble's over, you're going to be with me forever.
Smile, Abraham. You don't need Sodom. There ain't nothing but sin, trouble,
and sorrow in this world. Our Lord said, there's nothing
but lust of the eye, lust of the fit, and all that's in the
world is present evil place. That's what the Scripture says. God sends trouble to deliver
us from it. And He sent Christ to deliver
us from it. They said in their unbelief,
we trusted that it had been He to redeem Israel. They're still thinking about
the earth of the kingdom. There are myriads of people who
call themselves Christians that still think Jesus, a man, is
going to come back to Jerusalem, that dirty, filthy, vile place. and build some kind of building
and sit in it. How foolish can you get? We trusted it had been heeded
to redeem Israel, to restore the kingdom to Israel, to get
us out of all these worldly troubles and have a kingdom like Solomon.
Everybody's at peace and everything's good. No, our Lord kept saying
this, my kingdom is not of this world. It's not here. I didn't come to make you happy
in this world. I didn't come to make everything
just hunky-dory in this world. I came to deliver you from it.
I came to deliver you from sin. To bring you out, God said, of
people in Egypt. He said, I've come down to bring
you out, to bring you up. Where? Canaan's fair and happy
land, where my possessions lie. We trusted He had redeemed Israel. He did. He is not a Jew which is one
outwardly, but inwardly. Israel, true Israel, all Israel
shall be saved. David said in Psalm 130, the
last verse of Psalm 130, he said, redeem Israel out of all his
iniquities, out of all his trouble. He did. The Redeemer came. He redeemed them. How? By his
own precious blood. and redeem their souls, save
their souls. Their bodies are going to be
full of sickness and suffering and trouble and anguish. But God saved their souls through Christ
crucified and given them a new heaven and a new earth. Think
on these things. And he went on to say, Ought
not Christ, verse 26, to have suffered these things and enter
into His glory. And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, He expanded unto them and all the Scriptures as
things concerning Himself. Then down in verse 44, you know,
something I notice telling you like this. In verse 44, look
at it. He said unto them when He appeared
to them, they finally knew it was Him, He said, These are the
words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you. All
things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses
and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me. These are the
words that I spake, the words. Right across the page, how does
John 1 begin? In the beginning was the Word. Did anybody catch that? These
are the words. This is what the word is. This
is what the book's all about. This is what heaven, earth, universe,
sun, moon, stars, trees, sky, every type, symbol, shadow, picture,
emblem, everything, every event, every person, everything that's
ever been in the history of the world points to Jesus Christ,
crucified, buried, risen, reigned, everything. It's all about Him.
God made time for Him to dwell in it. Do you understand that? And beginning today, We're going,
Wednesday and from here on out, however long it takes, we're
going to begin in the books of Moses. And we'll go through to
Malachi. And we're going to look at these
things again, okay? Somebody requested that. And oh, may our
hearts burn within us. See, he showed them how he's
the beginning. And in the end, He said, I'm
the first, I'm the last, I'm the beginning, I'm the end, everything
in between. It is I. He's the light. He's the Word. He's the woman's seed. On and
on it goes. He's Joseph, whom the Lord gave
everything into the hands of. He's the lamb slain. He's the atonement. He's the
Passover lamb. He's the smitten rock. He's the
brazen serpent. He's the bread. He's the way. He's the truth. He's Joshua.
He's Moses. He's Gideon. Keep going all the
way through here. He's Zerubbabel. Name something. Name somebody. It's him. It's
all about him. Do you see that? And he was preaching these things
for however long. I believe they were walking,
I believe they were slowed down. They were walking, walking to
Pharaoh. How long would it take you to
walk to Pharaoh? Well, a couple hours anyway. Okay? And he's talking, he's preaching
to them. And don't you know, they'd stop. Just enwrapped. It might have taken them six
hours to get there. But they were just enwrapped.
And he made as though, as though, he's not leaving them. He's never
going to leave them. He said so. I'll never leave
you. That's why he came for them.
How? How do you know? He revealed
these things, him, to them. And once again, he showed them
the same things, John. And they thought he was a preacher.
He said, stay, stop, come in, sit. Let's have supper. Keep talking. And he did. And he broke that bread. Bless God. The last time they
saw him, he was breaking bread and drinking wine with them.
And once again, they see him again. They hear his voice again. How? Why? Didn't he say, I'm the bread?
Man doesn't live by the word of God. You know how you're going
to have Christ revealed to you? Right here. You know how you're
going to get peace and joy? Right here. You know with whom
you're going to have peace and joy? Right here with Him, with
His disciples, in breaking this bread to you. Otherwise, you're
going to have confusion of faces, trouble, anguish, dimness, darkness,
and no peace. Thomas and the rest of them were
together, yes, but they weren't here in Him. They're full of
doubts and fears. Bless God He came back to them. Oh, our Lord, we're going to
look at this. Are you excited? We're going
to look at the scarlet line in the window again. You know he
preached that. He said, Rahab, he said to them,
do you think that a line in that woman's window saved her? That's
the blood of the Christ that hung on that cross. And I love, again, it says down
in verse 36, He stood in the midst of them and said, Peace
be unto you. And they were terrified and frightened
and supposed they'd see a spirit. And He said those words again,
Why are you troubled? Why are you troubled? Why do
thoughts arise in your heart? And we do, don't we? We do. We think it's this, it's that,
it's everything else. Look at all, look what's happening. Brothers and sisters, Brothers
and sisters, for your own peace, for your own comfort, for God's
glory and honor, trust the Lord. You know what? He is your shield. He really is. Our verse for tomorrow
morning, Brother Steve, you read it in Psalm 56. He said, what
time I'm afraid, I will trust the Lord. He said, in God will
I trust. I will not fear what man can
do unto me. That's tomorrow's verse. Oh,
if we had that right here. Write that on the tables of my
heart. My living Lord is right now seated on the right hand
of glory. He's reigning in the room. He's
looking and watching over this little assembly, this little
sea of Galilee, where His little weak women meet. And He did it
all. He's done it all for His glory
and for our good. It's all good. We're about to
see. About to see it all completely
unfold, just like they did, completely. And they said, and when he left,
he's coming back. They said, didn't our hearts
burn? Can you believe that, John? She said, John, did you hear
what he said? Wasn't that wonderful? Wasn't
that wonderful? Well, I hope you come back. Oh,
he will. You get together again, he'll
be there. And he did. And he did. And he
does. And he will. And he shall. Till he comes, all of us. Well, that'd be wonderful. OK. Well, John, you come.