The Road to Emmaus: Opening Blind Eyes to Scripture

e praise God brothers and sisters uh I'd like to read from Jeremiah 29:1 for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and the future so God he he wants to bless us he wants to uh Prosper us you know um he he really genuinely wants the best for us that's possible uh but all he requires is for us to follow his Commandments and follow his law and to try to live a more righteous life like Jesus Christ but we cannot do this ourselves you know we have to rely on the Holy Spirit to help us um so yeah with that being said let's stand up and pray for the service today Lord God thank you for this day that you given us Lord we pray and we ask Lord bless service today God we ask you fill this place the Holy Spirit God and help us to uh learn something new today Lord whatever is being said from your word today God help us to uh capture into our heart Lord God and to learn from it and to grow from it Lord and bless the singing as well Lord God in Jesus name we pray amen good morning church uh Al together we're going to be singing the song by the name of As the deer pants for streams of water [Music] as the dear PS for streams of water so my soul Longs after [Music] you you alone are my hearts desire and I long to worship you you alone Are My Strength my shield to you alone may my spe you you alone are my heart desire and I long to worship you you're my friend and you are my brother even though you are a king I love you more than the other so much more than anything you alone Are My Strength my shield to you alone may my spirit [Music] he you Al alone are my heart desire and I long to worship [Music] you I want you more than gold or silver only you can s SP you are alone are the real Joy giver and the of my [Music] eyes you are alone Are My Strength my shield to you alone may my spir heal you alone are my heart desire and I long to worship [Music] you you Al alone Are My Strength my shield to you alone may my spirit here [Music] here you are alone are my hearts desire and I love to worship you and we'll be moving to Shine Jesus Shine [Music] Lord the light of your love is shining in the midst of your Darkness shining Jesus light of the world shine upon us set us free by the truth do not ring us shine on the Shine On Me Shine Jesus Shine build this L with the father Glory BL Spirit BL set our hearts on fire FL River flow blood the nations with grace and mercy send forth your word Lord and let there be light Lord I come to your awesome presence from the Shadows into your Radiance by the blood I I enter your brightness search me try me consume all my darkness Shine On Me Shine sh on Me Shine Jesus Shine F this land with the father's Glory Spirit Place set our hearts on fire glor River flow flood the nation with grace and mercy send forth your word Lord and let there be light as we Gaze on your kingly brightness so our fa is displ your likess Ever Changing from glory to glory heer here may Our Lives tell your story Shine On Me Shine On Me Shine Jesus Shine fild this land with the father's Glory Spirit Place set our hearts on [Music] Far FL River flow FL the nations with grace and mercy send forth your word Lord and let there be light praise God praise the Lord brothers and sisters for this beautiful morning that we can all come here here together and worship the lord's name um and I just want to read a quick Bible verse in Romans chapter 8 verse 28 and it says here and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose praise God and I also want to announce our program for this morning and brother Doug will be saying a word for us God bless all right let's all stand for the reading of God's word let's turn in our Bibles to Luke chapter 24 I'm going to start in I'll give you a minute to find it I'm going to start start in verse 13 and I'm going to go through verse 27 and uh this is the famous story of one of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus while two of his followers were walking along the road to emus and uh first I'm just going to read it straight down and then we're going to be seated and talk about it verse 13 this is Resurrection Day that very day two of them were going to a village named emus about 7 miles from Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened while they were talking and discussing together Jesus himself Drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk and they stood still looking sad then one of them named Copus answered him are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days and he said to them what things and they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man who was a prophet Mighty in deed and word before God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel yes and besides all this it is now the third day since these things happened moreover some women of our company amazed us they were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did not find his body they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but him they did not see and he said to them oh 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 and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself let's pray Father in Heaven thank you for for This Magnificent story thank you for brother Luke who Faithfully wrote down this story just as your Holy Spirit guided him to thank you for all those who are here today may we ask today for a demonstration of the power of your words of scripture that they might penetrate our thick skulls and and uh and uh and our dull hearing and our weak eyes and our hard hearts and may it penetrate and may our eyes be opened and may we understand the things concerning you this morning amen you may be seated Luke chapter 24 I could say it has you could say it has a whole bunch of divisions I think a person could do a series of many a dozen sermons just on this chapter maybe more I know that John MacArthur um one of the first things that he did this is just my understanding I hope I'm not wrong about the dates and times but he took over a quite liberal church that was doing very poorly and uh he decided to give them the gospel to give them God's word you know just as a restaurant must have excellent food or no one's going to go there a church must have the food the True Food of God's word and just as any business no matter what the business is the real product is customer satisfaction so as whatever verses we're we're preaching through our product is faith and belief and hope and Joy from this we preach from God's word and we bear that fruit of Faith it's also it says this at the beginning of the book of Luke it says in chapter 1 verse one in as much as many have undertaken to compile A Narrative of the things that have been fulfilled Among Us in verse four that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught that you may believe faith is the product so the road so the whole chapter 24 is the the big picture of the single most important event in all history from creation to now the resurrection of Jesus Christ the crucifixion and then the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central event in history everything before that leads to it everything after that points back to it I would love to do the whole chapter inside of that is an appearance the first one that Luke shows he appears to two of his followers on the road to emus and then we're going to zero in on one particular voice uh verse which is going to be kind of the punchline today verse 27 Jesus said uh it said this is Jesus and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself all right so emus was a little village about seven miles from Jerusalem interesting that this name of this Village never appears in the whole rest of the Bible except right here and nobody knows precisely where it is right now um I think it's something like I'm I'm guessing a little bit but miles from Jerusalem nowadays Jerusalem is many many miles huge you know it at at one time Garden City was a six mile walk from boisey I looked it up boisey City Hall to Garden City City Hall is about six miles but Garden City has gotten swallowed up into the metro area of Boise and Jerusalem is at least four times as big as us so I'm thinking that ammas is somewhere in there but what I understand is that okay if you're looking at a map here's Jerusalem over this way is the coastline in the Mediterranean Sea and it's about this direction towards the coast okay that very day this was Resurrection Day and we know that it was in the afternoon fairly late in the afternoon 7 miles something you could walk maybe in an hour or two depending how fast you're walking we know from verse 29 when uhh says so they drew near to the Village to which they were going he acted as if he were going far but they urged him strongly saying stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent so we know this was not in the early morning of res Resurrection Day this is much later we also have we also know that that these two disciples were not the apostles um we just look at the little bit of the backstory we back up into Luke 23 just a few verses before um it says I'm sorry no verse 20 uh chapter 24 uh verse 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the 11 and to all the rest now that would have been some of all the rest Copus is not known as one of the 12 um this is the only time that his name happens although Luke being very faithful did record his name It also says in chapter one that Luke invested investigated everything thoroughly from the beginning from the sources most likely Copus was the witness who told this story even though the story surely spread we find a short version of it in mark But Copus would have been one of the followers who was not one of the original 12 and he was not an apostle and we find out here that Copus is much like us he's uh interested in Jesus he knows quite a bit about the story he hangs out with disciples yet he is like so many where his his heart is his heart is hard and his eyes are dim and his ears are dull and his eyes are not opened to the truth of things we're going to see that verses 13 to about 24 you're going to see that they have a worldly view as to what happened so I was reading verse 13 that very day two of them were going to a village named emus about seven miles from Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that it happened that's that was the talk of the whole town so the Lord made sure first of all that Jesus was Mega famous all throughout the land it was very well known all that he had done and all the things that had happened he was people were putting their hope in him that he might be the Messiah although they had some ideas that the Messiah was going to be maybe a military leader who was going to free them from Roman rule and yet everybody knew and it was the thing everyone was talking about verse 15 while they were talking and discussing together Jesus himself Drew near and went with them I want to say that Jesus himself is here now and walking alongside us and we don't see him just as it's going to say in verse 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him how is that is it because he looked different it was because God himself did not will it so that they would see him all of their Resurrection appearances as far as I can tell are like this um where whoever sees Jesus doesn't recognize him at first they think they're seeing a spirit or a ghost or uh Mary Magdalene uh he appeared to her at the tombs and she thought he was a gardener let's let's look at that for a minute I love this story this is in John 20 I'll give you a second to find it John 20 in verse 11 the appearance to Mary Magdalene starting in verse uh John 20:1 but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb she was heartbroken and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had Lain one at the head and one at the feet they said to her woman why are you weeping she said to them they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they blade him having said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing but she did not know that it was Jesus Jesus said to Heroman why are you weeping whom are you seeking supposing him to be the gardener she said to him I I love this don't don't miss this sir if you have carried him away tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away now all the ladies here have you ever tried to carry a grown man uh It Ain't Easy uh but she had the faith that she believed she was going to she could carry him and then Jesus said to her Mary she turned and said to him in Aramaic raboni which means teacher so At first she didn't recognize him and then there was a moment he spoke to her and he did will that she would see so back to the road to emus in Luke 24: 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk now there's an there's an important principle here that anytime God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit when they ask a question it's never this is a principle when God asks a question it's never because he doesn't know the answer God is eternal and unchanging and all knowing it is impossible for God to not know something God says to Cain where is your brother it's not because he doesn't know where his brother is he says why has your countenance Fallen it's not because he doesn't know why he knows that his brother Abel's blood is crying to him from the ground God Jesus the Holy Spirit are one and they are all knowing and all powerful and all present uh so when they ask a question there's always a purpose besides the simple thing that maybe they don't know what is this conversation I think he's trying to get them to talk for the sake of it being in this book for us what is this conversation and they stood still looking sad so this now this is this walk to emus part of our takeaway is that we are also on a walk to Aus of our own and this is the journey from sadness to gladness from confusion to un understanding from unbelief to great faith to praise and worshiping God as we'll see at the end of uh of this book now we won't finish the whole book today but but this journey to emus is a metaphor for this church and every other church right now they stood still looking sad then one of them named Copus answered him are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days brothers and sisters this is the Risen glorified Lord Jesus Copus is so clueless that he asks him implying that he's the only one who who doesn't know see it just like I said before it is widely known the Lord made sure that it was widely known that he was dead this is the foundation for the resurrection first everybody has no question that he's dead are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened no no no Jesus is the only one who knows all about what has happened he knows from before the foundation of the world that all this must happen he knows all the things that will happen he is what they say omniscient or all knowing are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn't know and I love what Jesus said to them the Risen glorified Jesus said what things and they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man who was a prophet Mighty in deed and word before God and all the people so they don't believe what they need to believe yet but they do get that he was a prophet he certainly was a prophet he's certainly much more than a prophet he's certainly not less than a prophet in fact Deuteronomy 18:18 Jesus is the prophet in John about the first in the early one of the early chapters they asked John the Baptist are you the prophet John says no we know from Luke chapter two that uh that John the Baptist was a prophet but he wasn't the prophet Jesus was the prophet but they at least know that he was a prophet it says Mighty indeed and word before God and all the people Mighty indeed certainly these are people who are full of doubt and confusion and sadness and think about this they've seen they've been around it's well known that he has raised at least a few people from the dead so we know that he has power over life he has the power of resurrection and yet they are not yet believing that he is risen they've seen him they've known that he uh fed 5,000 people that he's made the Blind seea and the lame walk he's walked on water and yet they still don't believe you know I always thought when I was a kid the story of the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3 I always thought oh you know I'm not sure about this stuff but if I saw the burning bush which is full of flame but not consuming not cons not being consumed I would believe and yet we do we do have that big ball of Fire in the Sky the sun which burns constantly and is not consumed and yet we still don't know that this is God God's creation and he upholds these things by the word of his power do you know you ever wonder about that an atom it has a nucleus and it has electrons and neutrons where's the motor what makes those things go around what kind of fuel do you add to that where do you plug that in it goes God upholds all things by the word of his power and yet here we are disciples who have seen these things and yet they don't believe and he was mighty in deed and word before God and all the people verse 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him notice that it was there's no mention of the Romans really who was responsible for his crucifixion is the ones who were the teachers of the law who knew the scriptures the best who knew who the Messiah was who knew what the characteristics were going to be they they were the ones most able to recognize the Messiah and as a matter of fact some of them were fools and some of them knew just what they were doing but it's interesting that the condemnation comes from the top the uh the arrest they did in secrecy at night because they knew this would be unpopular with the people they uh they waited in undercover of darkness and then they went and they had false rigged trials right and in the end pilate puntius pilate was going to say I don't see anything wrong with this guy you know I'd like to let him go and it was the chief priests and the rulers who got the crowd all up in a lather saying crucify him crucify him verse 21 but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel he was the one to redeem Israel but they didn't understand the that he had to suffer and die that this was this was actually a sign among signs that actually authenticated who he was they thought that his death meant we just went down in flames we just went down in defeat they also had an idea as I mentioned a little bit ago that they had the idea that redeeming Israel meant some kind of military takeover over the Romans and then Copus says yes and besides all this it is now the third day since these things happen now he seemed to miss the sign of Jonah which was a prophecy where he was in the belly of a fish for three days and then he came out you know nobody ever lives through being swallowed by a giant fish it's not known to happen I've heard rumors that it could happen but and also there are several times at least where Jesus himself said to his disciples that he was going to be given over to uh to the Gentiles and crucified and on the third day Ro Rise Again besides all this it's now the third day since these things happened and he goes on this is all true moreover some women of our company amazed us they were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did not find his body they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive now we know we know from let's see I'm just going to go back to 2411 Mary Magdalene Joanna Mary the mother of James and the other women went met with them who told these things to the apostles but these words seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe them so they've heard all this stuff and they still unbelieving some of those who were with us when went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but him they did not see that's going to be Peter and John now verse 20 uh 13- 24 this shows basically how we are that we're hard of heart we're foolish we're blind in one eye deaf in one ear and bound in deter not to use what's left over and Jesus in his word speaks the truth like you and I can't speak the truth to one another as well as God's word speaks the truth to us Jesus speaks and says oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken that's us I'm going to include myself but that could even be the title of this sermon we are on the road to emus and we are the foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken John MacArthur points out that that word all that the prophets have spoken that word all is key every one of the churches that's heretical knows some of the scripture and they quote things out of context and a lot of the churches that are doing poorly like to cherry-pick vers here in a verse there [Music] um it's very important to have a complete understanding of all the scriptures uh certainly they've missed the stuff concerning how Jesus was to redeem us verse 26 it says was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things necessary and enter into his glory and then here we are to the punchline and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures that the things concerning himself and that's what we're going to do to hear that part you'll have to tune in next week um we're going to talk about the scriptures that concern Jesus and I might add I might add that this is the greatest teacher in the history of the world is Jesus interpreting the scripture of the things concerning himself let's pray father thank you for this message and uh thank you for this pulpit and thank you for these people who've come may it be that you open their eyes to understand the scriptures concerning your son Jesus may it be that their hearts are pierced and that there's a fire built within them and that their hearts burn within them uh as we exposit your words we ask all these in the name of Jesus Amen Al together now we'll be singing is so sweet to trust in [Music] Jesus is so sweet to trust in Jesus just to take him at his world just to rest upon his promise J to know the sa the Lord Jesus Jesus how I trust him now I fuit him more andore Jesus Jesus preious Jesus oh for Grace to trust him more oh how sweet to trust in Jesus just to trust his cleansing blood just in simple Faith to blunch me need the healing cleansing flood Jesus J Jesus how I trust him how I him more and Lord Jesus Jesus preious Jesus Oh for Grace to trust him more yes this sweet to trust in Jesus just from sin and self to cease just from Jesus simply taking life and rest and joy and peace Jesus Jesus how I trust him how I F to More andore Jesus Jesus preious Jesus oh for Grace to trust [Music] him I'm so glad I learn to trust thee Precious Jesus save your friend and I know that thou are with me will be with me to the end Jesus Jesus how I trust him how I him andore Jesus Jesus preious Jesus Oh for Grace to trust him more praise God my dear friend friends and uh we heard uh brother Doug speak on the road to to him mous and um you know sometimes I wonder like how did all of this happen Okay Jesus is risen he's not in the Tomb you know um imagine somebody dying that you know uh they come to get him and he's not there like like this would be such a um a big uh question mark where is the one that died you know and we see over here that that these people have that same question and I think it's exciting next week we'll be uh listening more about this this road to ous and uh we'll see what God put on Doug's on Doug's heart and also the week after that uh we have actually a scientist that will be joining our church and he will be uh preaching on Noah's Ark is that right Peter yeah or Jonah Jonah and the big fish Jonah and the big fish so we'll be listening to some of that as well and learning and let the Holy Spirit into our heart uh let the Holy Spirit do its work and and let the Holy Spirit encourage us and instruct us uh does anybody have any needs if not then um after service we'll go to the gym and there will be some some hot meals over there for us and we can talk and enjoy uh each other's time and uh conversations let's pray Lord God we thank you Lord for this message that was spoken today Lord we ask that this message Lord God it comes into your heart like that mustard seed God and grows into a tree Lord God lord what you have done for us Lord nobody has done Lord and we honor you for that God because you saved us Lord God and may like and may this word encourage us and may we take it God God in our daily uh Walk with You Lord but in everything may your name be praised and glorified in Jesus name we pray amen Our Father in heaven Hallowed Be Your your name your kingdom come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from the evil one for your kingdom your power and Glory forever are yours amen God bless