Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing Bible study in the Book of Luke. And we're just
kind of getting to the process of closing out this chapter.
I don't know how much more time we'll spend in it. Probably not
too much. And we're concerned with the
resurrection in this final chapter of Luke, chapter 24. And we've
been spending a little time, a little segment each week on
different aspects of the resurrection, and how it was received, and
what the results were, and just the amazing fact of it, and the
recording of it in the Old Testament before it took place, and how
we found that from Genesis on through all the Old Testament. thousands of years before the
actual event, and the very purpose of God being carried out in time
at the crucifixion, the death, the burial, and the resurrection.
And then we spent some time kind of looking that, you know, a
lot of times people, they get focused on the Christ died for
our sins part of the equation in the gospel, but sometimes
the resurrection part of it just gets kind of bypassed. And so
we've been spending some extra time on that. And as we look
at it today, we find those two on the road to Emmaus. One of
the great things about the Bible is no matter where you are in
your spiritual life, There are always more wonderful things
to learn about the Lord. You just never run out. There's
no end to the depth. In fact, we had a lesson earlier
in Luke about a launch into the deep and how there's always more
layers to grace than appear on the surface. And we can never
fully get to the bottom layer of it. It just keeps going and
keeps going and keeps going. And these ones on the road to
Emmaus were so sad because they had all these ideas about the Lord and what He was going
to achieve. And they said, we thought He
was going to be the one that would free us from the Roman
yoke and deliver Israel and all these things. And it's been three
days since these things occurred. And so then he said, beginning
at Moses, He expounded to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself. And the resurrection,
He was standing there with them and revealed Himself to them.
And I love that part where they said,
when they were talking about it later, and we're going to
have a verse about that, I think, from Hebrews, I think, here in
a minute. when he revealed all these things
about himself, and they went, and then they were talking about
it. And they said, didn't our heart just burn within us when
He revealed these things? And every time we learn some
new, the Lord reveals some wonderful new thing to us, our heart just
burns with that wonderfulness of grace. And yet, to many people,
it's detestable, the whole aspect of the gospel. I guess when we're talking about these
two on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus was the conversation, over
in the book of Malachi chapter 3 and verse 16, we're just going
to read a snippet of or quote a snippet of that. They that
feared the Lord spake often one to another. And they that feared the Lord,
as they spake often about the Lord one to another, the subject
is always him versus, well, here's what I did. And we were kind
of, Mike and I and Norm were talking about that this morning.
The works of men are always just, when somebody starts telling
you something religious stuff and then every other word is
I, that's a clue. That's a big red flag. Paul, the only time that he referred
to I was where he said, here's, I did all this stuff
that was done. And then he said, when it pleased
God to reveal his son in me, that's when things changed. And you know, the disciples At
the same time that these two are on the road to Emmaus, the
disciples are all locked up in a room in Jerusalem. Because
in John 20, verse 19, it said they had taken refuge in a room
for fear of the Jews, and they had the doors closed. Because
they had just killed Jesus. And they said, we're next. And
they were afraid. And you know, it turns out that
he was not where religion tried to put him. But it was risen. And so one
of the things we're going to address today is like, why did
the resurrection cause such agitation? And that's what we find almost
the rest of the New Testament from Acts on forward is just
replete with the the disciples and the apostles and everybody
telling people about Jesus. And the resurrection was a key
part of what they brought forth. And it always met with extreme
results one way or the other. And we'll look at some of those.
But there were just really two results that came from that. And some said, we would hear
more of this. And others said, well, how can
we put them to death with the least mayhem? So you have those
kind of those two end results there. So why did the resurrection cause
such agitation? And the base reaction to the
resurrection by unbelievers is it's just rooted in the same
issue of enmity that the natural man has always had with God. The fact was and is that God
can't be disposed of by any means which man contrives, whether
it's physically or philosophically. They tried to physically kill
him. They said, well, we need to get rid of him. And so we've
gone through all those scriptures, said they consulted with the
high priests and the chief elders and all those people how they
might put him to death. And they'd been talking about
it among themselves for a long time, how we need to put this
guy to death. How can we do that? And they
were allowed to carry that out according to the determinate
counsel and purpose of God, it turns out. They were just doing
what he had before determined to be done for the atonement
of his people, contrary to what they thought and believed. And philosophically, people have
always said, I have my opinion of God, or
whatever God they're talking about. This is how I think He
operates. And so I'm free to do whatever
I want to within those parameters. God put me here in this circumstance,
and if He doesn't like how I turned out, that's His problem, not
mine. And I've done the best I can. That ought to be good
enough. I shouldn't have to do anything
else extraordinary. I shouldn't have to depend on
what he said. And as we went into the scriptures
last time, Jesus said, you do error. not knowing the Scriptures are
the power of God. You have no concept of the righteousness
and holiness of God, how sin interacts with that, what's God's
reaction to the sin, what does it take to overcome that. You have no concept of that,
no clue. It can't be done in just some
physical realm that those things that they did were supposed to
just be types of, or shadows of, or representations of, pictures
of. The actual gospel is repugnant
to them, and so is the truth of the resurrection and the adjudication
of the satisfaction of God as it's applied to the people of
the Elector God as they're declared justified. righteous through the merits
of Christ. Boy, I just love that scripture. And we read from Matthew
where when he came up out of the water at the baptism of John,
that picture of the death, burial and resurrection, he came up
out of the water and the Spirit of God rested on him like a dove
and a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased. Satisfaction. I'm satisfied.
And we read that from Isaiah 53 for the zillionth time. He shall see the travail of his
soul and be satisfied by his work. My righteous servant will
justify many. He shall bear their iniquities.
Key words in there. Many. There. Not a universal
broadcast of willy-nilliness, but specifically. You know, the apostles seem to
have gotten in trouble more times for preaching the resurrection
than any other thing. It was like the resurrection
just Like the elders and the chief priests and the Sadducees
and the Pharisees, they were all like gritting their teeth
through the part where he said, you have taken it by wicked hands,
I've crucified and slain. And then when they got to the
part, and the same Jesus, have God raised from the dead. It's
like, it was like the tipping point, you know, they said, we
can't tolerate that anymore. But you know, the resurrection
gospel was mighty through the spirit and the declaration and
belief of the gospel. And in Acts 22, and we've been
kind of paraphrasing some of this as we've been going along,
you men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God among you by miracles, wonders, and signs,
which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also
know, Acts 2.22. He's laying the foundation. Here
was the Messiah was among you, and he did all these mighty works. But those never really result
in belief, as Norm has been pointing out through the Old Testament
in Judges lately and in Numbers and Leviticus and all those.
They add all these exhibits of God's mighty power in delivering
them out of Egypt and all the promises that he made from the
foundation of the world. and all the mighty works that
he did. And yet, these all died in the wilderness except for
two or three. Verse 23 of Acts 2, "...him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."
Boy, what a thing to have somebody say right to your face. And that
is aimed at everyone. You have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain whom, verse 24, whom God hath
raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was
not possible that he should beholden of it. Boy, what a statement
about the power and almightiness and eternal nature of God. The confidence that it exudes
In Psalm 22, or one of the Psalms, he says, Thou will not suffer
thy holy one to see corruption. He counted on that. He was that. What a magnificent statement
about it just wasn't possible. If we go, let's go on to Acts
in chapter 2 and read a couple more verses
here. seeing how Luke wrote Acts, he's
just kind of following up with what comes next part after the
24th chapter of Luke. Then a little bit later he writes
the book of Acts. So this mighty sermon that they're
preaching, In verse 24, he starts off telling
about whom God hath raised from the dead, having loosed the pains
of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden
of it. And then he starts talking about the Old Testament again.
For David speaketh concerning him, in verse 25, I foresaw the
Lord always before my face. For he's on my right hand that
I should not be moved." What a vision he had. What a revelation
he had of the Messiah. Therefore did my heart rejoice,
and my tongue was glad. Moreover also my flesh shall
rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither
wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Because thou
hast made known unto me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full
of joy with thy countenance." I'm just quoting the Old Testament
there to these folks that some of them may have been more or
less familiar with it, completely familiar with it from
a physical standpoint, reading of it. He said, men and brethren,
let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David, that
he's both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto
this day. Therefore, being a prophet and
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him. I love that verse
in Hebrews where he says, by two mutable things. He swore
to us that we might have strong consolation. It's just unshakable. The oath and the promise of God. God had sworn with an oath to
him that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh,
he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne." And we have that
documented. Norm was just pointing out various
women that were in the Scriptures that we find in that lineage
of Christ down through time. He's seeing this before the spake
of the resurrection of Christ. that his soul was not left in
hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God
raised up whereof we're all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the holy goath, he had shed forth this, this gospel of the
death, burial, and resurrection, which you now see and hear. For David is not ascended into
heavens, but he saith himself the lord said unto my lord sit
thou on my right hand until i make thy foes thy footstool again
quoting from the old testament there therefore let all of the
house of israel know assuredly that god hath made that same
jesus whom you have crucified both lord and christ Now, when
they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. I think that's
that same word, goad, that Norm has been bringing out. The ox
goad, it's an interesting tool from that day and age. As they
were using oxen for whatever purpose they used them for, plowing
or transporting goods or whatever, they had this stick that was
six or seven feet long. When I looked it up, it was like
six inches in diameter, so it was a good heavy stick. like a heavy duty shovel handle
we might think of it. And it was kind of pointed at
one end so they could kind of poke the lazy ox and it wasn't
kind of keeping up or doing his share of the load. They could
kind of goad it with that pointy part and urge them along. And
the other end was kind of shaped like a chisel point And they
would use that when they're plowing, like when the plow blade got
all gummed up with clay and gunk, they would kind of tip it over
and they would use that chisel part of it to chip that mud and
gunk off the plow blade. Then they would go back to poking
the ox, say, okay, back to work. And they were pricked in their
hearts. And they said unto Peter and
to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall
we do? And boy, isn't that the question that they always try
to get you to respond to in religion? What shall we do? OK, here's
the formula. All you have to do is repeat
after me and say this prayer, and if you said that prayer,
dial 800 so and so, and I'll send you a Bible with my name
on the front of it. in an address where you can mail
me or set up a direct deposit account. What shall we do? And Peter said
unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost. Well, religion has always interpreted
that you do this, this, and this, and then that's for remission
of sins. And for would really better be
translated as because of. And that's sometimes the way
it's really translated. And be baptized because of the... Baptism is a picture of that
death, burial, and resurrection that we talked about from Matthew. It's a picture of how salvation
occurs and why. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. Well, that's nothing more than
the revelation of Christ. And for the promise is unto you
and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many
as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did
he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward
generation, the ones that want to keep you under the yoke of
bondage, the ones that want to keep you under religious control
and political control. Then it says, They that gladly
received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added
unto them about three thousand souls. Can you imagine that?
And we just, you know, we just can't fathom that. We're just
such a small group here. And we read about mega churches
that have 45,000 members that attend in a sports stadium and those kind
of things. And even in Spurgeon's day, where
he preached at the Metropolitan and Park Street pulpit and stuff,
they were full to the brim and people were outside trying to
listen in through the windows. 3,000 souls, that's a lot. That must have been concerning
to those guys that counted on being in religious control. Well,
there's 3,000 more people that aren't going to be throwing shekels
in my container next week. And it says, and they continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in
breaking of bread and in prayers. And 3,000 souls. Hard to imagine. You know, religion, it's always been a powerful economic
and societal force. Free grace is just a direct threat
to that. Remember the guy that was blind
from birth? They said, anybody that believes
in this Jesus guy shall be cast out. They can either bind or sell.
We don't have anything to do and they'll be shunned. It was a serious thing to be
cast out of the religious society at that time. And so it was a controlling thing. And nothing's really new in this
same day and age. Free grace threatens that. Free Grace doesn't call for you
to do anything. Free Grace just says, when it
pleases God to reveal His Son in you, then that's when it'll
happen. And He uses the Gospel to get that to His people. God chose by the foolishness
of preaching the gospel of the death, burial, and the resurrection
to save them that believe. And we believe according to the
working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when
He raised Him from the dead. It's all tied together. It can't
be chopped up and formulatized. In Acts chapter 4, Again, they're speaking in Acts
4.1, it says, And as they spake unto the people, the priests,
and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, who didn't
believe in the resurrection, absolutely, none of them really
believed, but they made a doctrine of it, of not believing that.
The Sadducees came upon him, and being grieved, that they
taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection
from the dead. They were just angry that these
guys were there teaching salvation
by grace. And they laid hands on them and
put them in hold. That means jail. Put them in
the prison until the next day, for it was now eventide. That's
what they did with them. They locked them up. Said, you
stop that. And then in Acts chapter 13,
we have Barnabas and Paul at Antioch. In chapter 13, verse 30, they
said, But God raised him from the dead. But God raised him from the dead.
And then we skip down a few verses to verse 45. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy. And
they spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming." There is not a single thing different today. When you go and read somebody
or preach to them from anywhere in the Bible with an eye toward
grace, which is the entire thing, they don't like it. And then they speak against those
very things. I'm sure that's probably happened
to everyone here at some point. When we were up in Alaska, they
brought in the hired guns to assassinate us at a church meeting You Calvinists, you always believe
that your children are always saved somehow. And we thought,
well, that's not right. We don't know anybody that believes
in grace that can say, oh yeah, my children are all saved. They're not. They haven't exhibited
any evidence of it or said anything, but they always characterize
you with these misconceptions because the doctrine of grace
is detestable to them, and their enmity with God over what the
Bible says. You can't preach from Ephesians
1, or Romans 9, or Romans 8, or Romans 11, or Romans 10, Romans
3, Romans 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 16, John, any of John, none of Luke. A little bit from John, a mischaracterization
of John 3, 16, and then the rest of it's up
to you. But when you actually teach them or tell them about
the resurrection and what that actually did for the church,
oh, can't go there. Great anger against God. Great
anger toward God, working and causing belief according to his
eternal purpose and will. Great anger against God and setting
at naught all of man's contrivances and all of his schemes and his
incorrect understanding, his inability to force God to act
in accordance with man's ideas of religion and of performance
of works and righteousness and all those things that we talk
about all the time. It's just endless. direct opposition to
the truth of the gospel, the death, the burial, and the resurrection. But you know what happens also? But when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad. And as many as were ordained to eternal life,
believe. And they glorified God. They
gave Him the credit. They said, I didn't do anything. I was just a, Lord have mercy
on me, a sinner. That was the conclusion they
came to. I looked after God revealed His
Son in me, I said, I looked at my own works which were not good
and loathed myself for them. But God says, just like He appeared
to those disciples in that upper room, He came into them and the
first thing He said to them is peace. Don't squabble among yourselves
or don't have faith that there's going to be world peace or there's
not going to be any more conflict between you and the Romans or
the Assyrians or whoever, Babylonians. He said, peace. There's peace between you and
God Almighty because of me, because of what I did. I am peace, he
said. I am the truth, the life, and
the way, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me. I am peace. We're saved by his life given
for us, justified by his resurrection. That's what it says in Romans
4.25. Paraphrasing that, it says actually,
quoting, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again
for our justification. So all of our offenses, and we
mentioned this in the previous lessons a long time
ago, that when they crucified those guys, they crucified the
one thief on the left and the one on the right, and they were
thieves and robbers. And there would be a sign written
on them in some kind of chalk on a slate or something, and
they would hang that on that cross that said, Thief and Robber. And he'd be laying there or hanging
there on that cross, dying an agonizing death. And that was
a warning to people not to be thieves and robbers, and it was
effective. That would keep a lot of people from becoming a thief
and a robber. And on Jesus, they hung a physical
sign that said, King of the Jews. But underneath that, spiritually,
there was a long scroll of all the offenses of all his people
that he died for. He was delivered for our offenses,
not for ours only, but for those that are yet to come and for
those that already came. And at no point, at no point do works of man,
no matter how significant in their own eyes, satisfy the righteousness
of God that he before determined was required to atone for that
long list of offenses of his people. And then we find out that he's at the
right hand of God, make an intercession for us because we have an accuser.
And after we're saved, we're like the biggest one. Oh man,
I can't believe I just did that. Oh man, how did that happen? And that's what old Paul said.
That's just one of the most comforting scriptures you can think of is
in Romans where he says, you know, the things that I set out
this morning, and I was going to do a lot of good things. And
I was going to make a special effort to not do any sin, and
be good, and read my Bible, and do this. And he said, you know
what? I didn't end up doing any of that. The things that I would
do seemed like I don't do them. And the things that I said I'm
not going to do, that's what I ended up doing. And he said,
who's sufficient for these things? the one that paid for them all
with the list of offenses on the cross, and then was raised
from the dead for our justification. That's, he says, in the spirit,
it's always wrestling against the flesh, so you can't, in the
flesh against the spirit, so you can't do in this life the
things that you would. So we just have to say, praise
God, thank God for the resurrection. seeing how he's ever able to
say them to the uttermost that come unto God by him. That's
a key word there, by him. Seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them. I was listening to a little Spanish
song the other day, and the refrain in it is all paid for. all paid for, everything is paid
for. You know, in the Old Testament,
it said, tell Israel her warfare is accomplished, that her sin
has been paid for double, not just the minimum, but abundantly,
exceedingly above all we could ask or think. It's paid double. So man can never come to God
by their own abilities and operations because they're dead spiritually. And because God has from the
beginning established the only way to Him is through His Son.
Jesus in John 14, 6 said, we mentioned this a minute ago,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. those three critical
things. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Well, one thing that religion
doesn't always consider is in that verse right there, it says
life is required for one to come. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Life is required for one to come. A dead one cannot come. And it's galling for a man to
consider that continual intercession by a resurrected Savior is necessary. And even if it does appear necessary,
I can't just take care of that myself. Tomorrow I'll do something
good. tomorrow I'll write a little
extra check or tomorrow I'll go down in front of the post
office and hold up a sign that says something wrong. So the resurrection and the purpose
of God which it represents then is subject to the very same intimacy
against God. It's from Him and so thus it's
rejected. How can one born and dead in
trespasses and sin have any ability to perform any spiritual good? It took an almighty divine act. When we think about Lazarus laying
there in that tomb, and Jesus waited four days for him, and
I'm sure all of his family and relatives said, I wish you were
dead. And they probably said all kinds
of prayers trying to intervene in his behalf. And yet he died
according to the purpose of God. And Jesus waited four days so
they could be sure. He's like dead, dead. And I mean
dead with a bad smell, dead. There's no doubt that he's dead. And they said, don't roll away
that stone, because it's going to be bad. And they did, and
he went in there. Can you imagine? He's called
Lazarus, whom he loved. He went in there in the midst
of that. terrible decay and aroma of stench of death that had taken
over the body of his one that he loved. And he said, Lazarus, come forth. Loose him and let him go. And
it was all gone. All of that was gone. And he came out, came forth,
and he said, untie him. They had him all wrapped up. But you know, he was unable,
he was laying there. In religion they think, well,
he's just laying there kind of mostly dead, we like to say. As soon as somebody says the
right word to me, I'm going to respond. But no, he had no ability until
the almighty power of God was placed on him. He spoke to him and said, Lazarus,
live. So in religion, as Norm's always
saying, they debate whether, in fact, you're dead, dead, or
only mostly dead. And if the former can one really
raise himself from the dead long enough to respond, to act, and
fill out the form, or repeat after me, or say something, well,
they can't. Or are they just like Lazarus,
four days dead and unable to do or perform anything to mitigate
or improve their spiritual and eternal situation? You know,
we all know if an infant is born stillborn, that means they're
not living. They come into this world dead. Well, spiritually, that's how
we come in. And we can't do anything to improve
that unless an external force is exercised. We'll go out that same way. Jesus,
and we've been quoting this for on and on, Nicodemus and John
3, unless man be born again, can't see the kingdom of God.
Unless man be born again, he can't enter the kingdom. And he says, well, I don't understand
that. How can that happen? How can
these things be? That which is spirit is spirit, and that which
is flesh is flesh. And we've been through that a
hundred times, so we're about out of time here. But you know,
everything is Everything in opposition to the resurrection is just based
on unbelief. You can't slice and dice the
gospel. They have a basic unbelief of
the seriousness of sin, unbelief in the complete spiritual death
of man, unbelief that you need a Savior, especially a resurrected
one. Unbelief that your own efforts
are no good. Rationalization is an effect
of the fall where you can say, you know, I'm not as bad as that
guy. I'm a lot better than those people. when we attempt to provide our
own works, it's just, it's an offense to God that says, in
effect, what you provided is not enough, or not good enough,
or we don't need it. I'm good enough on my own. It's
an offense. It's a slap in his face. And
it's not good. So you know the final straw for
old Stephen when he preached the resurrection was they took
him out and stoned him, and in the purposes of God they laid
their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul, later on to be called Paul the
Apostle. all in the purposes of God. He's
heard that whole sermon. The same Christ whom I preached
to you is risen from the dead. So we're out of time, but I'm
going to close just by mentioning that it takes the power of God
for one to say, I would hear more of this, one to say, I believe, help my unbelief. Be free in the resurrection,
and until next time, thank you.