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[0:00] Let's turn again for a little to the chapter that we read in Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 24. In verse 25, this is where Jesus has drawn beside them.

[0:19] He said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

[0:30] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. I think it's fair to say that this passage here about the journey on the road to Emmaus is one of the favorite passages with God's people.

[0:52] Because in it we can identify so much of our own experience. Of times where we can feel really down. And times where we struggle.

[1:05] And times where we wonder if at times we've sometimes got it wrong. Not that there's anything. I don't mean that we've got it wrong with regard to who Jesus is.

[1:19] Or that we've got it wrong with regard to the way of salvation. But sometimes we worry, have we got it wrong ourselves personally? Have we maybe not closed in with Christ in the way that we thought?

[1:31] Sometimes we struggle because of things that happen. It doesn't appear the way we thought. Things are different to the way we expected.

[1:43] Sometimes we see how little progress we're making in the Christian life. And we think we would, by now, we would have made leaps and bounds. And that we would be vibrant, powerful Christians.

[1:56] That's what we thought years ago. And still here we are. And sometimes we're struggling. We thought we knew the days we took our baby steps. But sometimes we feel we're still taking baby steps.

[2:09] And so there's all these kind of things come in to the Christian's life. And sometimes we feel that we might even come short at the end of the day. I believe maybe it's more something to do with the way we are ourselves.

[2:25] Because you sometimes meet Christians in other places. And they don't seem to be riddled with the same kind of maybe perplexing thoughts that sometimes we are.

[2:36] Although I know that there are, that's, we can't talk in generalization. But maybe something of our makeup where we tend to be reflective and tend to be inward looking.

[2:48] That we dig down and so often we can be discouraged by ourselves. And feel, what if one day I come short? And I think a lot of God's people feel like that.

[3:00] There's a sense of fear. What if one day I come short? That I don't reach heaven's shore.

[3:13] But these are all sort of feelings and experiences that the Lord's people have. And I think that's why this chapter here is one that's so encouraging.

[3:24] Because in it we meet two men who are absolutely down in the dumps. Because all that they've held to, all that they've kind of believed in, all that they hoped for, all that they expected, has kind of come crashing down around them.

[3:42] And so there's this, they're just, they're in the depth. That's the way we find them. But one of the wonderful things that this passage shows us here is that the Christian life always ends in victory.

[3:58] It was at the Monday of the Communion, Reverend D&D Campbell preached on there was evening and there was morning. And that was the great picture of the Christian life.

[4:09] Highlighted that it wasn't put down as morning and then evening, but evening and morning. And that is a great picture of the Christian and the Christian life. That yes, there are the evenings, but it always ends in the morning.

[4:24] It will end with the morning, the resurrection. It will end with the fullness of light and glory. And it's a wonderful concept.

[4:35] And that's what we have here, that Jesus is the one. He comes alongside these two men. And Jesus' presence with them and his teaching and everything that they subsequently experienced changed everything.

[4:51] So that they moved from the darkness into the light. And here we have again one of the wonderful things that the Bible shows us that separates the Christian faith from all the other faiths and sects and isms within the world.

[5:11] We know that there are so many different religions. But one of the central tenets and one of the very, very heart of the Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[5:23] And in many ways, this is something that is so powerful. It's not just in many ways. It is so powerful and it is so unique. And it's the very pulse of the Christian.

[5:37] That our Savior is one who defeated death. And that he rose from the dead. And that he is seated at the right hand of glory. And I believe that is why Satan has put so much emphasis over the years in his attack upon the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[6:00] There isn't the attack on the incarnation, on the birth of Jesus. I mean, that's a historical fact. It is something that history itself can prove. Even people who will dismiss the Bible and say it's not true, they cannot argue against the actual birth of Jesus, although they will try and deny his divinity and all that.

[6:21] But the historicity of Jesus is something that even his greatest critics cannot deny. The death of Jesus is something that even the greatest critics cannot deny.

[6:34] But this is where the huge emphasis is put. This is where the great attack comes upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Upon the empty tomb. The empty tomb baffles the critics of Jesus.

[6:49] And that is why there is so much emphasis put against it. Now, we know that's one of the wonderful things. And of course it should be. Because as we know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is fundamental to our salvation.

[7:03] It has intertwined the death and the resurrection. You cannot separate one from the other. They're intertwined. They're interlinked. Remember how the Apostle Paul puts it in Corinthians.

[7:14] This is what he says. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. And you're still in your sins. See?

[7:25] So it's an absolutely vital part of our salvation. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so this resurrection that Jesus, this full salvation that Jesus has achieved for us, has been made over to us.

[7:45] And that is why I believe one of the wonderful things will be when we arrive in glory. We'll be like, remember when the Queen of Sheba came up to visit Solomon.

[7:59] And she had heard so much. And there was a couple of things said was, when she saw all the glory and when she heard his wisdom and all these things, there was no strength left in her.

[8:13] She was just, it was like she was overcome by the greatness and the splendor and the majesty and the glory of it all.

[8:24] And I believe, I don't mean that we will have no strength in glory. But that's going to be kind of the reaction we will have when we arrive there.

[8:36] And I remember the Queen of Sheba also said, the half was not told me. Well again, that's kind of what it will be like when we arrive in glory. Because we see here but through a glass darkly.

[8:48] It's, you know, we're always straining to see, struggling to see better. We have, we have, we have, and remember it's by faith. And you know so often we say, Lord I want to see better.

[9:02] I'm sure all of us say, if only, if only I could see a wee bit of better. If only, Lord, if you could just give me a little glimpse just to help me along the way. But it's by faith.

[9:13] But one day faith will give way to sight. And we will see. And that's where, it's like Psalm 126 says, remember, when Zion's bondage, God turned back. As men that dreamed were we.

[9:25] Just, it, when everything was turned round, it was so amazing. It just, there was this radical transformation from darkness into light.

[9:36] From captivity and bondage into freedom and liberty. That's how it will be in glory as well. As men that dreamed were we. Whoa, this is. It's just so wonderful.

[9:49] So this is, this is all at the very heartbeat of the Christian faith. And that's why these two men who were on the Emmaus road. And they were making their way, which was about, Emmaus was about eight miles northwest of Jerusalem.

[10:03] And these two men were so discouraged. And they believed they had every reason to be discouraged. Because things hadn't worked out the way they thought.

[10:16] And, you know, we're often in the same boat. Because we can easily become discouraged. And we think we have every reason to be discouraged. But sometimes the way we see things and the way things really are can be very different.

[10:31] And I think we discover that very often. The way that we think things are. And the way things really are can be totally different.

[10:42] And that's, that was one of the pictures that we have here. These men were persuaded that they knew exactly what had happened. They believed they were where they were. And that they knew in their emptiness and despair how things were.

[10:56] But they were so far wrong. And I cannot even begin to imagine the emptiness of these two men. Because you're here as a Christian today.

[11:07] And you know who you believe. And you know what you believe. And that belief undergirds your life. It makes you who you are.

[11:19] And if all of a sudden, right at the very heart of everything, you discover that all you had based your hope on is no longer there.

[11:32] The foundation has broken. Can you imagine the despair you would be in? Imagine if, now this, obviously this cannot happen.

[11:43] But imagine if our revelation was given to us from heaven. Which said that the work of Christ wasn't complete.

[11:55] That there was aspects to our sin that were somehow overlooked on the cross. And that some of us were still under the condemnation of sin.

[12:09] And that the blood of Jesus Christ wasn't going to cleanse from all sin. What we were initially thought. And we know to be true and believe. Imagine if our message from heaven came like that.

[12:21] We would be distraught. Because we would say, well, everything I believed. All my hopes. My future. My everything. Is tied up in what I have believed to be true.

[12:34] And now, now I don't know where I am. Now, we know that what I am saying isn't the case. And where there will be no revelation from heaven. Because the work of Jesus Christ is a complete work.

[12:46] But in order for us to try and understand a wee bit of where these men, the emptiness, the despair. Because they had trusted everything to Jesus. They believed in him implicitly.

[13:00] That's what it says. You can catch that note of despair in verse 21. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped.

[13:11] Yeah. That's what we've done as well. We've exercised our hope. Now, when they use that word hope, we've always got to remember that Christian hope is different to the hope of the world.

[13:24] We so often say that. The hope of the world is, if I say, well, I hope to go to Inverness. Well, you hope to go to Inverness.

[13:34] And you'll go to Inverness if everything works out as you plan. But maybe the ferry won't sail. Maybe you'll take ill and you can't go. Something happens at home to prevent you.

[13:47] Loads of things can happen. That will change what we had hoped to do. Christian hope is different. Christian hope is guaranteed. It's assured. It's a persuaded hope.

[13:58] It is based upon Jesus. We're all going to remember that. Our hope is based upon who Jesus is. So when they said we had hoped, they were saying all our hope was centered in him.

[14:14] That he is the one who was going to redeem Israel and redeem us. So you can understand the crashing of their heart.

[14:26] Just the despair that's within them. And as we say, there are many times in our own situation that we've experienced in different ways the crashing of our hopes.

[14:39] And that's a difficult thing. And I'm sure as you look back over your life, you've had dreams. Or maybe if you're young, you still have dreams. You're planning what you're going to do and things that you want to do.

[14:51] We all do that when we're small. We have ideas of what one day will be. And I'm sure as we look back over our life, there have been times where our hopes have been dashed.

[15:04] And you're not where you are today. It's often a different road to the one that you had thought. The one you had planned. We've all found along life's way that we've been turned from going where we thought we were going to going in another direction, in another route.

[15:25] These things happen. But what we've always got to remember is that God for his people works all things well. He works all for their good.

[15:38] And you know, quite often we glibly quote things like, for instance, God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways and thoughts.

[15:51] Sometimes we quote these things and we know it to be true. But you know, then all of a sudden comes into our life with a wallop. And then we realize, whoa, his ways are just so, so, so different to our ways.

[16:09] There are things we just all of a sudden don't understand. And we hate that. Because we hate the moments our life goes out of our control. We like to have an element of control of our lives.

[16:25] But every so often along the way, we lose control. And what is God teaching us there? He's teaching us to trust him all the more. And he's saying, I know you're in darkness.

[16:38] I know the road has taken a twist and a turn here. But this is where you really, really, really got to trust me. And I'm sure as we look back in our lives, it's along these twists and turns that sometimes, sometimes we failed.

[16:52] But sometimes it's in these places we've come to know the Lord better. Times we've grown in faith. Because we've been cast upon him. So we find that that, again, is part of our Christian experience.

[17:09] And, of course, as these men were talking, and they're going along on the way, Jesus joined with them. And, of course, they didn't recognize him. We're told that their eyes were held.

[17:19] They didn't recognize him. He's talking with them. And there's a beautiful picture. And, you know, we can never come together around the word and speak of Jesus.

[17:33] But he presences himself with us. We're told that where two or three will gather in his name, he's there in the midst to bless. You remember how in the book of Malachi it says, those that feared the Lord and spake one to another, the Lord heard.

[17:51] And a book of remembrance was kept. The Lord is always in this. See, when we come together, and when we speak about him, he comes.

[18:02] He joins with us. And these men afterwards, although they didn't recognize Jesus at the time, as Jesus talked with them, something happened.

[18:15] Their hearts began to burn within them. That's what they mentioned later on, after they discovered who he was. That's what they said in verse 32. Then they said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?

[18:30] The presence of Jesus changed everything. Even although they didn't at the time recognize him. And have you not had similar experiences? When there's been occasions and times, afterwards you said, you know, that was special.

[18:49] There was something. It's not something that was someone. But sometimes we didn't realize who that someone was. But he was there. And he changed things for you.

[19:01] It became real and personal and powerful. And that's what was happening along this road. As Jesus was with them, his presence was there. And so we find Jesus asking them, what are you talking about?

[19:12] You know, it's almost one of these, what you would say, almost a humorous situation as you look in on it. Because here is Jesus.

[19:24] And he's joined up with these two men. And he's walking with them. And he says, what are you talking about? And they begin to tell him all that has happened to Jesus himself.

[19:34] And he is, it's as if he's. And then Jesus said to them, after he listens to them, all foolish ones and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

[19:52] And Jesus is saying to them, you know, you've never really grasped. You've never understood. Now, as we said, these men had lost, they felt they had lost everything, but they hadn't.

[20:02] And even although today you may, as a believer, feel you've lost everything, you haven't. You haven't lost the work of regeneration in your soul. You haven't lost the image of Christ that has been put upon your soul.

[20:18] You haven't lost your desire for him. Even although you may feel he's far away. Even although you're praying and you feel the heavens are brass. He's not listening.

[20:30] Do you feel that? You're praying and you're saying, Lord, I used to speak to you and I knew you were there. But I'm speaking, Lord, and I don't feel you're hearing me.

[20:43] It's like that, that there's this brass over the heavens. That's no new experience. The Bible talks about these very things. But the fact is, the desire is there.

[20:56] And you know, if the desire is there, that is one of the most encouraging things. Let me tell you, if today, your desire is to know more of Jesus, that there is deep down within you just this desire for him.

[21:17] Let me tell you, that is not from yourself. It's not from the world. It is only from himself. That is not natural.

[21:29] Tells us very clearly in Isaiah 53 of that prophecy of Jesus. They saw no beauty in him. What is it? That they should desire.

[21:39] The desire for Jesus is from heaven. It is not something that is natural within the heart.

[21:52] And when that desire is there and it doesn't go away, that desire continues. Let me say, that is something that is very, very encouraging. Because as I said, that desire is not something that is natural.

[22:07] But it is something that is God-given. So, even although you may feel, you might be here today and you feel like these men that everything that you had you have lost. Well, as I said, you haven't lost the work of regeneration.

[22:20] You haven't lost the image of Christ in your soul. And you haven't lost the desire for him. And that means that you will be like these men one time. It will all come back. The Lord is not going to leave you there.

[22:32] Let me assure you, the Lord will not leave you there. Even although today you may feel in darkness and despondency, he won't leave you there. And so, Jesus then, he begins to open up to them the whole work of salvation.

[22:49] You see, the problem with them is they misunderstood his purpose. They were expecting a sort of like a kingdom set up in this world where the Messiah would sit upon the throne.

[23:03] they never envisaged a cross. They didn't see that the way to glory was through suffering. They didn't understand that it wasn't going to be an earthly kingdom but a spiritual.

[23:16] The kingdom of God, as we often said, is not a locality. It's not like the United Kingdom. You can get a map and say, well, there's where you can see the United Kingdom.

[23:27] But you cannot pinpoint to one locality and say, you know, that's where the kingdom of God is. The kingdom of God is wherever his people are. And so, there was so much that they hadn't understood.

[23:41] And so, Jesus then says to them, oh foolish and slow of heart, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Now, within the history of the Christian church there have been some great minds who have argued and said they think it would have been possible for God to have planned some other way of salvation.

[24:10] But that in his infinite wisdom this is a way that he chose. There are some minds who will say that and they will say yes, but this is a way that he chose.

[24:22] He is all wise. But the thing with regard to the salvation in Jesus Christ what we've always got to remember about God's purposes is this. That we say God is love and that is absolutely true.

[24:36] It's not that God chooses to be love. It's not that God chooses one day to be loving. He is always love. But he is not just love.

[24:48] He's always holiness. He's always truth. He's always justice. In the totality of his being. and he cannot at any point be love in a way that doesn't measure up with his justice and with his truth.

[25:09] The attributes of God cannot be separated so that he can do one thing say he'll say to himself well I'm going to deal with justice. I am going to this requires my justice.

[25:23] but he cannot operate his justice without it being in keeping with his love and with his mercy and with his grace and with his holiness and with his truth.

[25:39] He is the totality of his being in everything he does. and so in his wisdom taking in all that he is this is the way that God devised that his only begotten son would take our nature would come into this world as a sacrifice for sin that he would suffer in this world and that he would open up for us this way of salvation.

[26:12] And that's what everything in the Bible is about. And that's what Jesus was teaching. That must have been some people have said people go to different Bible conferences and things and they say oh it was great it was well I'll tell you there were only two at it but that was the greatest conference ever.

[26:29] Where Jesus started with Moses Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and he went right through it right through to the prophets and he began to teach them and showing them that everything right from Genesis all the way through is pointing to the Messiah pointing to Jesus the whole sacrificial system every aspect of it was pointing to Jesus you go through the Psalms the poetry of the Bible pointing to Jesus you go through the prophets pointing to Jesus everything and Jesus is opening up before them the necessity this is the way it had to be and that's why when Jesus came into this world he came as a man of sorrows and he was acquainted with grief everywhere he went even the good that he did was it was misrepresented and people of course he's doing that but through the power of the devil he's doing it malicious slanders were spoken about everywhere he went he suffered but of course the fullness of his suffering came when he became the absolute sacrifice for sin on the cross because on the cross two things happened there was the withdrawal on the one hand of everything that he had ever known remember

[27:56] Jesus had the spirit without measure the fullness of the spirit and in that he had constant and complete communion and fellowship with his father in heaven and he enjoyed the support and the peace of God that passes all understanding all that was taken from him there was a withdrawal of everything that he had known that is why on the cross he says my God my God why have you forsaken me everything that I ever had and all that I've ever enjoyed has been removed but not only was there the removal but there was also the pouring out upon him of God's wrath and justice for sin so there was this combination of the withdrawal and the receiving in order that we might be saved our punishment was upon him and so

[29:02] Jesus is saying to them this had to be the way but after that should not suffer these things and enter into his glory the glory that was prepared the mediatorial glory he had his own glory in who he was but the glory that he had by promise the glory that would be his in achieving what he did and that my friends is the glory that we will enter into and share in in this world we will receive of his grace but grace is the beginning of glory in the world to come we will enter into that glory that he speaks about here and so Jesus is opening up everything for them if today you're a believer then let us reflect and think more and more upon what God did for us and what his son

[30:05] Jesus did for us the necessity of it the impact of it and again if you're not a believer you know now the thing is I believe within the Christian church that there are more people who are believers than will publicly make it known I believe that there are people and it might be again because of our culture and our ways who are very slow to come forward very slow to confess and yet as I've said it so often you cannot really hide God's work in your soul it becomes obvious God's people recognize there is a recognition amongst God's people of one another something that cannot really be hidden difficult for the

[31:37]  Christian who's not sure ask the Lord to take you on to where you are sure and that you will know Jesus is my Savior let us pray