Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to the Gospel according to Luke chapter 24 and verse 29.

But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. Luke 24 verse 29.

Constrained, but they constrained him. Constrained is a pressing invitation prevailing upon him to go with them. and really refusing to take a no for an answer.

You may think, well, these two here, with the stranger that they met with, if we were to think of the beginning of their meeting, why would they ever want him to remain with them? Why would we ever prevail upon a stranger that we had met along the way when we came then to our house and we wanted them to come in and to abide with us? You think, well, something must have happened. Something must be some reason why. that that would be the case.

When we think of us in nature, by nature as sinners, really saying, depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways, it's a wonderful thing, a miracle, if one such sinner should desire that the Lord might come with them, abide in their house, stay with them and that they prevail upon Him to do so, that they are given such urgency and such prayer that the Lord does and that the Lord blesses them.

This portion really should be a real encouragement, an encouragement to those who perhaps at first feel like these two, so low, so discouraged, and maybe thinking, well, I'm so unspiritual, I have so little appetite or desire for the things of God, or so lifeless in prayer, that the Lord could work in such a way to change all of that. so that you really desire and want and long for the Lord to come to you and to bless you.

As encouragement also for those who have known something of the blessings of the word and yet still have not what they want, still feel they need further blessings, still feel they need something more to assure them that they are the Lord's and that the Lord will put his seal to a work once begun.

Kindly it is encouragement here, if these things had stopped at that door and the Lord had gone on, they would never have known who that was. They would not have had the crowning blessing. It's a real encouragement to press that little bit further, if you like. We've had a little token, a little drawing, a little help, not to just let it go, but ask the Lord for more.

I've often been really encouraged in my own study, and get to know, the Lord says, my sheep, they hear my voice, and I trust I do know those first indications of when the Lord is coming to bless my soul. When I first feel a softening or a crawling towards a particular text, I may have been reading the word the same as I regularly do morning and night, and yet one verse, one word arrests my attention. And I feel my heart move after it and draw into it. And when I begin to feel that, then I come before the Lord in prayer to really press and really ask that He visit me and bless me in that word.

And many, many times He has done that. And He's recognizing, and the more times I've known it, and the Lord may deal with each of His people in a different way, But he says in John 10, that my sheep, they hear my voice. They recognize it. And I can think back to 45 years ago, where the Lord first began with me. And those ways that he used to deal with me then, he still does. I still recognize. And you know, even in a natural sense, we might not have been with someone for many, many years, decades. If they've got a distinct voice, a distinct accent, you've only got to hear that voice and you know who it is. You're pretty sure you know who. And the Lord says with his people, there is that with him they recognize and they know.

No wonder this word be a real encouragement to us, encouragement to a seeker, encouragement to those who Maybe at the moment feel no drawing that they're not in the position that these two were in. No, not at the beginning or not at the end, but when the Lord dealt with them, they were.

And there's another aspect as well, where it's regarding just men on men, or perhaps a couple, a man, a young lady, those who may get speaking together, and feel the Lord's hand in it, to be in this position where instead of just letting the thing go, they prevail upon that person, especially a man with a woman, where there is that attraction and that drawing, to actually make the move is the man's part.

to do so, you might say here, well, if the disciples were like the church and the Lord was the bridegroom, they were doing the constraining. But the Lord had prevailed upon them first, as he had brought them to want to constrain him. And it's a good thing to think of this neutral attraction that is here.

I think also the position of three churches in our denomination that are a pastor on probation at this time, and it is hoped that what will be felt after a period of preaching, that those churches will feel they do want to constrain those men to be their pastors. that they prevail upon them, that it is something that is, again, a two-way thing, and that comes about through the word that is spoken.

And so, whatever way it may be applied in a practical way, there is those lessons that I hope we can bring from this passage to us, but I pray it might be in a way that you can relate to, I can relate to in my life, and to watch for those times when either we are constrained or we desire to constrain another, and especially the Lord, that He would come and He'd favour our souls.

And remember that the point that they constrained our Lord here, to come in with them, they did not know how it was. That was not the reason why they constrained him. So I want to look firstly at what was the reason, why they constrained him, and then secondly, how they constrained him, and then the blessing that followed. But firstly, why? Why did they, why would they want a stranger to go in with them.

Well, this stranger first had come to them in their sorrows. They had been walking on the way to Emmaus, seven and a half miles, and speaking one to another of their sadness, of the things that were happening, how perplexed they were, how they couldn't understand it,

And this stranger had grown near to them, grown alongside them. What I felt is, especially in evangelism, and especially as well with a pastor. Now it's one thing to just give someone advice, what to do, or even present the gospel to them, or give them some text. One of the most important things for many in affliction, with trials, with difficulties, is to draw alongside them. Walk with them for a while. This is what the Lord did with them here. Not to be as immediately a preacher or an instructor or a teacher, but to actually walk with them so you get to know them. Sometimes the impression can be given if we come to someone that's maybe in the world, maybe our loved ones, maybe those in our families that don't know the Lord, that all you want to do is put religion down their throat. You're not interested in their affliction, their troubles, their trials. But if they perceive that actually you're interested in them, you're interested in their trial, you feel for them in what they are going through and their difficulties, and that comes first. And this is where we have to really notice, this is the way the Lord began with these two. He drew us alongside them. And the first thing he wanted to do was not to be the one that was doing the talking, He wanted them to do the talking. He wanted them to open up to Him. So He asked those questions that drew it out from them.

He asked in verse 17, what manner of communications are these that ye have one to another as ye walk and are sad? Now remember of course the Lord knew The Lord knew exactly. But He was asking these questions so that they could unburden to Him. They could tell it to Him. It's a good lesson for us, isn't it, in prayer? That the Lord loves to hear His people just unburden their problems, their difficulties, their perplexities, things that they cannot understand, the things that are making them sad, to just unburden them. If ever there's a lesson in scripture on this, it is here, because our Lord keeps on to bring out from them.

And so He says to them, when they tell Him why they're sad and what is happening, they think He's a stranger in Jerusalem. And again, He draws them out, what things? keeps asking them questions. And they tell him then about Jesus of Nazareth and how he was crucified, and what the chief priests had done. And they tell him what they had trusted. We trusted that it should have been he that should have redeemed Israel. Beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. And the Lord succeeded in drawing all the listener, and the Lord here is listening. One of the greatest helps to a poor sinner, greatest things, greatest trait, as it were, we can have as pastors is to be a good listener, and to listen to what the people are saying, and what their troubles and their trials are. doctor's surgeries, how many hospital rooms, a crowd of people who just want someone to listen, someone to think about what they are going through, to take notice of them.

And so he asked these questions, drawing them on, and then when he got it all from them, then he began to speak. And the first thing that he did, he gave them a gentle, he might say, but faithful rebuke. In verse 25, then he said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? He rebuked them first, drawing them to the prophets, because remember that they had intimated that they'd been looking to Jesus of Nazareth that they should have redeemed Israel. In implication, this is how they understood the prophets were pointing to the Redeemer. And they thought they had seen Him. But what He hadn't done or what was done to Him was not what they thought.

And so the Lord then gives them a rhetorical question. There's a question that He didn't need an answer, but it was implying the answer, but also really to make a point rather than to get an answer. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? that it should be so. And then he opened up those scriptures, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And we're told at the end the effect that it had upon them. When the Lord had shown himself Then they said in verse 32, did not our heart burn within us? While he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us these scriptures. Hearing, ear, listening to the scriptures being opened up.

I wonder how it would have been with the Ethiopian. As Philip opened up, began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. I think it would have been a very similar effect to bring him to say, see here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised. And so these things happened.

They found a man, a man that was faithful to them, a man that would draw near to them, a man that would listen to them and draw out from them, a man that they wanted to be with, and I believe, not just the very things that He said, but they were drawn to His person. They were drawn to His person. And that's why they constrained Him.

Our Lord says in John 6 that no man cometh unto Me except the Father which sent Me draw him. I'll raise him up at the last day. And we have many instances of those drawings in the Word, all different ways. You think of after the Lord had spoken of the need of a new birth, then in chapter 4 of John, he gives four instances of a new birth, all different.

How He drew the woman at the well of Samaria to desire that living water. How He touched upon the very one thing that she knew about Messiahs. When Messiahs cometh, He shall tell us all things. Yet this man, again, like here, was a stranger to her. She didn't know who it was. But He had told her all things about Himself. He tells her then, I that speak unto thee am He.

But when she goes to the man of Samaria, she says, come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? She doesn't say, this is the man that told me he was Christ. What was more powerful to her than even Christ telling her who he was, was that he had told her about herself, that he knew about her. and we see how the Lord dealt with her in quite a long account.

But then we have the quick accounts of those of Samaria, some they believed because of her word, others they couldn't believe through her testimony and they said, now we have heard him ourselves and we believe and are sure that this is the Christ. And then we have at the end of that account the case of the centurion and his faith.

Lord deals in different ways, but each one is drawn. We think of Nathanael, Philip was used to go to him. So we have found Jesus of Nazareth. You found him of whom the prophets have written. And Nathanael says, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip says, come and see. And so as he comes, The Lord sees him and says, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. And he said, Whence knowest thou me?

Again, like the woman at the well of Samaria. Who has persuaded this stranger? He knew about him. He says, Before that Philip called you, when thou was under the fig tree, I saw thee. And that was so convincing to him. He knew who it was. Thou art the King of Israel. How did he know?

Now we don't see them much over in this land, but when I was a child we had a fig tree in our garden, and it was such an umbrella of a tree, you could get in a chair and you could sit underneath it, and the great big leaves were canopy, you could, someone could walk past it, they'd never see you, never see you. You'd have to pull the leaves apart to get into it, and once you got in, He had just got a complete canopy all over you. And I still have seen the light, but whenever I read that account, I thought, yes, Nathaniel knew that it wasn't a normal man that would be able to see where he was. He was hidden, but the Lord knew where he was. And the Lord knows these ways to draw, to draw a sinner after him. to want to hear more, to want to have more of His company.

Do you notice this? What the Lord does to make us is to realise that while we want to constrain someone we still do not know who it is, but we've known enough to be drawn to Him and we want Him to abide and tarry with us, stay with us, we want more of that word, we want more of this person, more of his company. And so it rings to want to constrain him. There is a reason, but the reason at first is not that we actually know

There may be those of you here that have felt such drawings or heartwarming under the word of God. You may be like Samuel, who did not yet know the Lord. The Lord started speaking to him, and he thought at first that it was Eli. Eli's voice he would have known very well. But the Lord kept speaking, and Eli perceived it was the Lord that had called the man. So directed the lad to speak. In a way, the lad was then to constrain the Lord. He was to have response to that voice. Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.

And from that point, we read that the Lord revealed himself again to Samuel by the word of the Lord. And when the Lord starts to like him, is revealing Himself through Him speaking, through Him drawing near, through Him coming to His people, I will come to you, I will visit you. The Lord uses afflictions and trials and troubles to draw near to His people in that and to bring His people then to desire to go after Him.

We have a similar thing in the Song of Solomon Remember the spouse was sleepy, and tense, as it were, far off from the Lord, and the Lord came, and he put his hand on the hole of the door, and spanked, and she moved, she rose up, she opened the door, but he'd gone. But then she went about the streets of the city, looking for him, have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? Again, it is the Lord that is drawing first, And then there is the one that has been drawn, His church, His people, that they are responding in a way that they want Him. The Lord will be sought of them, or found of them, that sought be not.

The Lord begins, draws, and then they seek, and then they ask, and then they constrain, Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. These disciples were willing that the Lord should come to them and be with them and tarry with them. So how did they constrain him then?

Our second point, how they constrained him? How would we constrain the Lord as following this pattern? Well, the first thing we would say that it is with words. Our text says, but they constrained him saying. They used words. You ever notice how much the emphasis is on words? We're told that by thy words thou shalt be justified by thy words, shalt thou be condemned. You think of the solemn count of the man that professed that he had slain King Saul. He hadn't, but he made out he did. I think David, he knew full well he hadn't slain him. But he had that Amalekite slain. He said, thy own words have testified against thee. Thou hast put forth thine hand to the Lord's anointed, and that man condemned himself by his own words. And yet you read in Romans the other side, that with the heart man believeth, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. A profession that confession is very important. I went to a baptising yesterday, up at Oakington. They make the practice there that the candidate writes out their call by prose and it was then read by one of their elders. In Salisbury, my son and his wife, when they were baptised, they wrote out their testimonies and they were called to go up into the pulpit and they read their testimonies to the whole church. Quite an ordeal in a way. But it is a profession of faith. It is a testimony of what the Lord has done for them. It is encouragement to the rest of the church and the congregation to hear such a profession.

With Eunuch, it was a very short one. When he desired to be baptised, Philip just said, if thou believest with all thine heart, So I believe that Jesus is the Son, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And that was the vital thing. Of course, many just viewed Jesus of Nazareth as being a mere man. And that very scripture that the eunuch couldn't understand, speaketh the prophet of himself or some other man, here he saw the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the means and the way of constraining is by words. And I think, is it not alright just to leave it in our thoughts and in our mind? But the Scriptures always speak of it in words. The Lord had met them with words, He'd drawn out from them so that they spake to Him what was their trial and trouble, And then he spoke to them.

When they all spoke of the case of the rich man and Lazarus, then the rich man thought when he died and was in hell, that if one arose from the dead, if Lazarus rose from the dead and appeared to his brethren, then they would hearken and would not come into that place of torment. But our Lord said that they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear that. He said, no, but if one were to rise from the dead, then they will believe. He said, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, they won't rise from the dead, they will not believe. And of course, there were many that when our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, they still did not believe. act prior to cover up the fact of resurrection.

The important thing is, if we desire to constrain the Lord to abide with us, if we desire a friend that we feel attracted to, to tarry with us and abide with us, If you desire a pastor to minister, to abide with us and to minister to us, you use words. Don't just say, well I'm just going to pray over this and I'm going to let the Lord do it all. There is a time to speak and there is a time to keep silence. Now the effect here was Not for them just to pray in their hearts, or may this man stay with us. He made as though he was going to go further. They didn't think or say one to another, well, looks like we've lost him, he's going further. Would have been nice if he'd just stayed. But they put it into words, they actually spoke. There is times to speak.

Many years ago, before I was called by grace, When I had my first job, an apprenticeship, and I applied for that job, it's in a hospital, and I didn't hear anything. And then I saw the job advertised again. And I thought, why are they advertising again? I want that job. So I phoned them up, I said, why are you advertising the position again? I applied and I got that job. All they said, you live too far away. And they'd muddled up my address with the address of the school I went to. The school I went to was 10 miles away from where I'd applied for the work. So it would have been 20 miles going to the work. But I actually only lived 10 miles away. As soon as I realised the mistake, I said, I'll come in for an interview. And no one else applied for that second time. I had the interview and I got the job. And that was how it started. my working life at 16. If I had just seen that ad and thought, oh, I missed out, not said anything, not picked up the phone, I wouldn't have had that. There's times that you don't take no for an answer, or you follow something up. And there are times that you realize the Lord has said no, and you can't push it further.

But when the Lord has in this case He so brought them to the point that they wanted Him to stay. They had to put that in words. I hope you and I are helped to put these in words. Ask the Lord, pray to the Lord, put your petitions, make your petitions known unto the Lord. And where it is in a literal case with a man or a woman and you have those things that are brought in you, you would like them to abide then put it into words, speak, and not be silenced.

And then there's another thing, they used reasons, didn't they? They constrained him saying, abide with us, they clearly said what they wanted, For it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." Probably four or five o'clock as we would have in the evening. And so they had reasons that they put a notice. The reasons are not what I've said is why they constrained him. They didn't say to him, carry with us because our heart was burned within us while you talked with us by the way. and who drew near to us in our sorrow, and you have described and opened up what has happened, they didn't. They didn't use that reason. The thing is, they wanted Him. The emphasis was more on Him than even what He had been saying. What He'd been saying, and what He'd opened up to them, was wanting so that they wanted Him.

It's a good thing, isn't it? If you hear the Word, you might hear a sermon. And the thing is, you want who is being spoken of. You want the Lord Himself. You want His presence, His blessing. You might say, yes, well, we'd like to hear more of that discourse and more of these things. It might be like the apostles where they'd ask that these things be preached and so then they'd go in the next day. They did ask Paul in that case, but I believe here the effect and drawing was they wanted him. So the reasons that they put were not actually what they'd heard or how they'd felt, but just it was getting toward evening. That was their excuse as it were. But it was effectual.

What they said was effectual. And I think the thing is here to be discerned. Where the Lord is in the matter, the Lord wants it to be effectual. It's not so much depending upon the words. It's the Lord's will and purpose. So that's why we read here that he might, he might as though he would have gone further. It really emphasises he really was going to go in with them, but he made out he wasn't. He wanted to hear from them. He wanted that effect from them. And he got it. And it didn't take too much. You might think, oh it's going to take so much arguing and so much persuasion and so many things to make this and bring it about, but actually where the Lord's hand is in it, and where he's been working in both ways, it won't take a lot. He did it here and he went in and he went in to tarry with them.

I want to look then at the blessing when he came in. What was the blessing that followed? We read in verse 30 that he came to pass As he sat at meat with them, he took bread and blessed it and break and gave to them." It was interesting, when they went in, you don't read of a further conversation, or opening up the word, the scene is changing now, and having a meal together. We don't know of the disciples, whether they were in the upper room, when the Lord had instituted the Lord's Supper when he'd broken the bread there. If they had followed him, they would have seen those occasions when he broke the loaves and the fishes, when he asked blessings upon the bread. But certainly where he takes the bread, blesses it and pray, is almost exactly the words of when the Lord instituted the Lord's Son.

We read later on in this chapter when he appeared to the disciples, at first they were terrified and frightened, they thought they'd seen a spirit, but he said to them, why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet. He was shown that, the holes in his hands. the holes in his feet. How could he break that branch without them seeing the holes? Without them seeing those evidence, without them bringing back to memory the Lord instituting Lord's Supper if they indeed were there. But again the Lord used this man, this meal, that their eyes should be opened.

One thing that drew me to Baptism was not baptism, but was the Lord's Supper, was under a blessing of the Lord, and if he was such an attraction to that ordinance as setting forth the Lord's broken body, his shed blood. The Lord has more than one way of showing himself, revealing himself to his people, but he's especially in a once crucified but now risen safely. This is of course what baptism sets forth, bearing with Him by baptism into death and risen again in newness of life.

What a day this was. It began with great sorrow, at the end it ended with great joy. It began with no understanding, but at the end of the day their understanding had been opened and they knew all what had happened and why it had happened. I love it when they return back, you know those seven and a half miles, usually we walk about three miles an hour. That would have taken them two, two and a half hours to walk back, unless they walk fast. And yet, though it was toward evening, the day was fast spent. with the blessing that they had, they easily walk back that way. They go back and I often think it's a beautiful testimony that a poor sinner could give to any church or anyone that inquired of what had been shown them, of what the Lord had done for them.

In verse 35, they told what things were done in the way and how he was known of them who break the bread. Two parts of it. You can tell what has been done in the way, what has been done in your life, tracing out what the Lord has done, but that culminating, as in this account, in the Lord making himself known. And we always remember this, the Lord comes to a sinner first, they don't know him. but by the Lord's dealings they do know Him. That's the thing, to know Him, whom to know is life eternal. And these disciples were brought in this way to know Him. And may we then also be a people that are constrained to constrain and to ask for the Lord to do those things that we want Him to do And especially in this, to abide with us, to be with us. This was the promise the Lord gave when he rose and ascended. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

It would be a good thing to go home tonight. And our prayer, our desire is, Lord, Lord, tarry with us. Abide with us. Remain with us. May the Lord let us bless you. Amen.