The Emmaus Road

I want to tell you a story.

It's a story that Jonathan just sang about.! It's a story about Christ's resurrection.! It's a story about going from death into life.

It is a story about hearing the call of your master. It is a story about seeing and hearing and obeying Christ when he is next to you. It's the story of the Emmaus Road.

And we can find that story in the 24th chapter of Luke. So if you'll please take your Bible and turn to Luke chapter 24. We're going to read this story.

Begins in verse 32. As you're turning there, I want to remind you of something that you already know or should know. And something that you believe or should believe.

And that is this. The only place that we can find unadulterated, unaltered, untainted, inerrant, infallible and inspired truth. Is in the word of God.

And in a day when it is difficult to know who to believe and what to believe. It is a day which we need this kind of truth.

One commentator put it this way. Only those who understand the Bible can know the truth about salvation and be saved from hell. Only those who know the truth of the Bible can live fulfilled, obedient, blessed, effective, joyful lives.

All matters of salvation and sanctification and all understanding of future glorification is contained in the Bible. The commentator went on to say this. Therefore, the greatest service that can ever be rendered to anyone is to explain them the meaning of the Bible.

Well, the story of the Emmaus Road is a story of when the Bible was explained to some men. They didn't know who he was, but later they could see.

The story of two men, religious men, godly men, on the surface at least Christ's followers. They were at first rebuked and then were taught and then whose eyes were opened through the faithful teaching of the word of God.

And we know it was faithful teaching because Christ was the teacher, right? So we read about this story in Luke chapter 24 beginning in verse 13. I'm going to read all the way down through verse 32.

And we'll have a word of prayer and begin. Luke 24 verse 13. And behold, two of them were going that day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.

And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them.

But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?

And they stood still, looking sad. One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to him, Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?

And he said to them, What things? They said to him, The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word and the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him into the sentence of death and crucified him.

We were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all of this, it is the third day since these things have happened. And also, some women among us amazed us.

And they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body. They came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of us, some of us, some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the woman also had said.

But him they did not see. And he, Jesus, said to them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Then, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

And they approached the village where they were going, and he acted as though he were going further. But they urged him, saying, Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.

So he went in to stay with them. When he had reclined at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed it. And breaking it, he began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

And he vanished from their sight, and they said to one another, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us? Dear Jesus, may we understand the truth of this passage this morning.

Jesus, may you be here with us, teaching us your word this morning.

Lord, there is no time better than now that we need your presence, we need your spirit, and Lord, that we need your truth to guide us in righteousness and understanding.

Father, this morning, as we reflect on the resurrection, really, we should reflect on it every Sunday, for every Sunday is the Lord's day. Every Sunday is resurrection day.

But Lord, we focus especially on it today, thinking about your miracle you wrought in Christ, raising him from the dead.

And we rejoice. And Lord, as we study it this morning, may we rejoice even more. May we rejoice in spite of circumstances. May we rejoice in spite of troubling things in our world.

May we rejoice in spite of family problems. May we rejoice in spite of money problems, and political problems, and national and international problems. Lord, may we rejoice that Christ is risen from the grave.

That's enough for us, God. We don't need perfect circumstances, or lots of money, or things going our way, or a perfect country to say, we rejoice.

Lord, it's enough that you have bled and died. It is enough that you have then been raised from the grave. And so this morning we rejoice.

Help us this morning do so. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. As we begin this morning, we're going to do a couple of things.

First, we're just going to look at this story. We're going to walk through this story very slowly, situate ourselves right in the middle of the story, and try to feel what they were feeling, and know what they were knowing.

So we're going to try to do that first. And then I'm going to take a few moments at the end of the message to just apply it to our hearts. And so a very simple setup this morning. We're going to walk through the story, and then we're going to apply it.

I think that is the best thing we can do. So first, let's look at the story. Biblical stories are, of course, inspired. This is not just some collection. The Bible is not just some collection of anecdotes from life.

These are inspired stories. Trust me, many more things happen, even in the life of Christ, and in the life of the disciples, and in the first century, many more things happened.

These stories, especially how they are written and how they are conveyed to us, these stories are inspired. And because of that, we don't just want to capture the data of these stories and the truth of these stories.

We want to feel these stories, right? We want to know what they were going through. And what better story than this? This is one of the most emotional stories, stories, I believe, of Scripture.

I think the song that Jonathan just sang captures that moment when those two men finally saw their master and they cry out, I can see!

This is one of the most emotional stories. And my prayer is that this morning we will understand the data, what was going on, but also that we will feel this story. We'll feel what was going on.

Because the mood and the spirit conveyed in this story is inspired as well. So let's do this. Let's just walk through the story. Are you ready? Let's just walk through it. First of all, we see the depressed believers.

That's the first thing we see in this story as a couple of guys, a couple of disciples who are depressed. Look what it says in verse 13.

And behold, that, by the way, that phrase, and behold, that's, Luke changes gears by saying that. You read the book of Luke, you find that ten or fifteen times in the book of Luke he changes gears by using these two terms.

And behold. And here's a gear change. Behold. Something's about to happen. Something's about to change. Here's a new story he wants us to hear. And behold, two of them, you read the first part of 24 and you know who them refers to.

Them is the disciples, not the twelve disciples, capital D, the twelve apostles. This is the larger group of disciples. And two of them, two of the followers of Jesus, the little d disciples, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.

We don't know anything about Emmaus other than it was seven miles from Jerusalem. There's no historical record. Other than that it existed. That's all that we know.

That it existed. It's on record books but we don't know where it is. There's been no archaeology done to dig up this city. There are literally thousands of cities all over that region that are dozens of feet below the dirt and it would take a multitude of archaeologists to dig up all the cities.

But Emmaus is a seven mile radius from Jerusalem. Somewhere and in some direction. There are all kinds of educated guesses but they're just guesses. It's just seven miles. So if you think of their walking to Emmaus, you just get this in your brain, if they are walking and they stop and they do things, maybe they're walking it somewhere in the neighborhood of two to three miles an hour.

So they're looking at about a two to three hour walk, right, to Emmaus. They're looking at this long walk, afternoon walk, back to probably their hometown of Emmaus.

And we're told, verse 14, that they were talking about all these things which had taken place. What are these things? Well, you go all the way back to 23 and even 22 and you read about Jesus and Him being crucified, Him being tried by first the religious leaders of Israel and then the religious leaders knowing that by law they could not crucify someone or kill someone on the Passover, they sort of handed off the responsibility to the Roman leaders.

And so the Roman leaders took it and they crucified Jesus as an insurrectionist. Not even the accusation that the Jewish people made against Him, they called Him a blasphemer. But the Romans crucified Him.

All this happened, all leading up to chapter 24 and then there was this report of Jesus' resurrection, the empty tomb, the lady seeing the vision and these men are discussing these things.

They're not discussing these things happily, by the way. We're told that they were sad, verse 17, last two words, looking sad.

They're confused, they're depressed, they're frustrated. They don't know what's going on. It's hard to know what to believe at this time. There's His death, which is undeniable.

They stood there probably with their hands over their faces weeping that their Savior was dying. And they didn't expect it, maybe a little bit, but they didn't expect it and He died.

And then, though He had prophesied His resurrection, they didn't know His body was gone. It wasn't as they had expected and they were sad. So they're talking about these things.

One of these people, one of these disciples, by the way, is Cleopas. We're told in verse 18, one of them named Cleopas. This is not Clopas who we meet in John chapter 17 or 19, I believe.

This is Cleopas. We don't see him anywhere else in the rest of the Bible. Now I think the reason Cleopas is mentioned here is because this is the guy who told Luke about this.

Remember, those of you who've been here for a little while, a couple of years ago when we started the book of Luke, what Luke's methodology was, he went out and searched for the truth.

He wanted to assemble what happened in Jesus' life. Luke wasn't one of the 12 apostles. He worked sort of under their leadership, under the umbrella of their authority.

And Luke puts things together and he finds the truth and he finds stories. And one of the people I believe he talked to was Cleopas. And that's why I think Luke is giving him credit here, Cleopas.

I think Cleopas talked to Luke and gave him this story. So they're walking along and they are depressed and they're sad. They were talking about Jesus who was from Nazareth.

He wasn't a Nazarite like Samson, but he was a Nazarene. He was just simply from Nazareth. He was a mighty prophet. They acknowledge that, which is true. The chief priests had sentenced him to death and they crucified him by the hand of the Romans.

All of their hope was dashed. They thought that he might be the Redeemer, we're told. They thought that this could be the Redeemer. But if he had been resurrected, if he had been raised, it wasn't the way that they expected it.

Really, it's not the way that you and I would have written this story, right? I mean, had I come up with how Jesus was to rise from the dead, he would have come bursting forth, been 50 feet high, stones blasting out of the tomb.

He would have been kicking Roman soldiers around and flipping the religious zealots in Israel off the face of the earth. That's the kind of Jesus I wanted to resurrect. That's the kind of Jesus I would think, that's what I would want to happen.

And I think that's what they expected. If you're a Jew, you expected Jesus to come. When the Messiah came, he was to set up this kingdom and redeem Israel. That's what they were hoping for, right? That's the kind of Jesus they wanted.

They wanted Jesus to prove himself politically, governmentally powerful, militarily powerful. That's what they wanted. But they're confused because that's not what happened.

There was an empty tomb and no one knew where Jesus was. Was it some kind of hoax? Was it other disciples who took him to trick people? Was it the Roman government?

Was it the religious zealots in Israel? Who was it? What happened? We've not seen him. We don't know. Some ladies had a vision. That's all we know at this point. And they were sad.

They were distressed. They were frustrated. They were confused. They didn't know the truth. They needed to know the truth. So these men were depressed.

They were distressed. You can imagine they must have thought what about reprisals from the religious people in Israel or the Roman government?

What if now they're going to chase us down? Now that Jesus has died they've crucified him. Now what if they're going to chase down any of his followers? What's going to happen now? So they must have been profoundly confused, depressed, and distressed.

So that's what we're introduced to. Two men walking down a road. You can just imagine the hot Judean sun bearing down on them. Maybe they're wiping the tears out of their eyes.

They're talking about what are we going to do now? There's reports that he's alive but there's no proof that he's alive. We haven't seen them. What if they come after us?

These men were walking down this Emmaus Road distress. The second thing we're introduced to in this passage is number two, the hidden Savior.

The hidden Savior. Look what it says. Verse 15. While they were walking and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

Now this is where the plot gets interesting because we have the privilege of seeing what's going on. I mean, we get to see that this story, we already know, read this, this story is going to end good.

Right? We already know this thing is going to end good. We don't know how. We don't know at this point. If you just read this far, we don't know exactly what's going to happen but we can see. Here's Jesus. They're depressed.

They're sad. They're sort of plodding down this road, wiping tears out of their eyes, confused, distressed, frustrated, and Jesus himself walks up and they don't even know it.

Look at the next verse. Verse 15. Verse 16. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. It says they were prevented from seeing him. Divinely prevented.

You follow the way Luke writes and there's no other explanation than that God blinded them. Now, we're not talking about spiritual blindness in the sense of death and them not being saved.

I believe these men were pre-New Covenant believers so I don't think that they were spiritually dead at this point but I do believe God reached down and blinded them.

And I believe the reason that the author here, Luke, includes this under the inspiration of God. The reason he includes this is for us to say, well, God's up to something here, right? God doesn't want them to see just yet that this is Jesus.

That's what makes this story so great. That's what makes this story so good is that it's not just about these guys and they're depressed and they sort of waller in their depression and then it's over.

No, this is a story about God's grace and God's mercy and God's up to something here. And we start to get a glimpse of this right at the very beginning. These two sad men walking down this street depressed, sad, in complete disarray about what's going on and Jesus himself, the very subject of their discussion, walks up and they don't even see him.

They don't even recognize him. I think sometimes God does that to us. We are blinded for a time, for a moment, from the truth.

There's a greater story going on and we don't know what that story is, but for whatever reason, God has prevented us from seeing clearly the truth and then, when it comes to us, God gets even greater glory, right?

And so, God has blinded these men for his purposes and we will see those purposes momentarily. So here these men are, they're walking and we get a peek into the plot that God is working here, this wonderful, beautiful story that's being woven, this great story that is coming together.

So we see the distressed believer. Secondly, we see the hidden Savior. Thirdly, in this story, we see the piercing questions. Look what happens.

Jesus walks up and in verse 17, he asks him some questions. What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?

That's a long question. question. I think the best way to summarize it in the English language is to say, hey guys, what are you all talking about?

You seem pretty intense. What are you talking about? Jesus knew what they were talking about, didn't he? I mean, Jesus knew exactly what they were. He knew who they were.

He knew what they were talking about. He knew God had blinded them to him. But he was asking this question. What are you guys talking about? Jesus, of course, was the master teacher.

Teachers, those of you who are teachers, you know that one of the best pedagogical tools is to ask questions. Now, Jesus didn't always do that. Jesus oftentimes was preaching, right? And it wasn't time to ask questions.

But Jesus, every word that came out of Jesus' mouth was not a sermon. He was teaching sometimes. He was comforting sometimes. He was just communicating to people sometimes. But when he was teaching, oftentimes, he asked questions.

He asked questions. Which of these was his neighbor? Who do men say that I am? Who is good but God?

And what happens when you ask questions is you make, you force the listener to assess their own knowledge, to think about the dilemma that they're in, to think about what's going on and to piece together and it forces them to do some logic, to put things together and to think and to ponder them and to think about them in a very clear way.

And so he asked them to do that. What are you all talking about? He says. And it forces them to put the series of events together. Jesus asked the question again not because he didn't know but because he wanted them to begin thinking.

He wanted to set up his teaching that he would get into momentarily. He wanted to set it up by getting their minds moving in the right direction. He didn't just come up and start teaching and preaching at them.

He asked a few questions. And I'll tell you this, just a little preview, he wanted grounds for rebuking them. He wanted them to articulate how they perceived the situation.

Well, they answer them. One of them, verse 18, Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?

How could you be in Jerusalem right now, dude, and not know what's going on, man? You're missing the whole thing. How could you be here and not know? Now let me say this, just a little rabbit I'll chase.

A lot of people who deny Christ and deny the reality of Christ and His death, one of the things they do is they attack His death and resurrection. They attack what happened on that day.

And they say, they usually say something like this, well, He may have died and He may have even been martyred for His cause or crucified. Maybe that's even true. But it really was limited and they would even say these same scholars would say, Jesus had no more than half a dozen followers.

There was never any thousands of people on a hillside. That's all just manufactured later. But there's a problem. One, all throughout Scripture it testifies that this thing was big and everyone knew about it.

This being one of those instances. There's also a historical problem. A few years after the Bible was written, there was a Roman leader writing and he wrote about Jesus who was in Jerusalem and was crucified.

So we have historical evidence that even people in Rome knew that there was someone very influential crucified in Jerusalem on that day.

Well, these men wonder the same thing. If this is such a big deal, how could you come to Jerusalem? They probably think that he's like a lot of Jewish people in that day in Jerusalem. They would have come for the Passover.

They would have come for the Passover on Friday. They would have come to the Passover and they would have been visiting from tens of thousands of people who would have been visiting Jerusalem. But they all would have known what happened with Jesus and they are astonished that he does not know.

How can you not know what's going on, they ask. Verse 19, he asks another question. What things?

And they begin to piece it all together. Here's what they say. The things about Jesus the Nazarene who was a prophet mighty in deed and word and the sight of God and all the people and how the chief priest and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him.

By the way, it's interesting. The chief priest and the rulers, that's the elders of that time, Sanhedrin primarily, they wanted to keep their hands clean of Jesus' blood.

So they tried him but they themselves did not crucify Jesus. They handed him over to Pontius Pilate, right? And they handed him over on the grounds of he's causing insurrection.

So they wanted to keep their hands clean. But I think this is interesting because everyone knows the truth. They crucified him. Everyone knew what was going on.

Yeah, technically they handed Jesus off to Pontius Pilate for him to crucify Jesus. But they're the ones that did it. And I think everybody in that time knew what was going on.

It wasn't Pontius Pilate, as evil as he was. He was not the one to blame. It was the leaders and the rulers. The chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him.

Then they reveal that they were hoping, verse 21, that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it's the third day since these things happened. They thought he was coming and they pieced together as best they could the prophecies in the Old Testament about the government shall be upon his shoulders.

They put all this stuff together and then they took some prophecies of Jesus about being risen from the dead and they put this together. Of course, Jesus publicly talked about himself being like Jonah who, after three days, came out of the well and talked about the destruction of the temple in three days, it would be put back together.

They pieced all this together and they came up with a scenario that I think you and I would have. Jesus would die and then the 70-foot Jesus would come bursting forth out of the grave.

Right? That's what they were thinking. And they betrayed their thoughts in these verses. We're hoping that he would redeem Israel. They don't mean redeem in salvation, spiritual kingdom, redemption.

They're talking about physical redemption. We're hoping that he would come and free Israel and dominate the world. That's what they were saying. And they refer to Jesus' own prophecy besides all this as third day since these things happened.

He said it would be three days and it's three days and it hadn't happened. Verse 22. Some women are amazed. We're amazed because some women are coming to us and they're telling us that there's an empty tomb and that there were some angels there.

There's something amazing going on but we're not sure about it. Some other men went. There was no body confirming their report.

But no one saw Jesus. So Jesus asked them these questions and they began to piece together what they believe happened. And as they piece these things together they betray some of their false thinking about Jesus, about God, about the events.

They begin to piece these things together and very quickly it's easy for Jesus to see where they've gone wrong. Their idea of a redeemer for instance.

Their idea of a resurrection for instance. Their idea of what Jesus would do once he was resurrected for instance. And they began to draw these things out of them with questions.

So the first part of this story we're introduced to some depressed believers. Secondly we see the hidden Savior. Thirdly we see the Savior asking these piercing questions so that they are putting together how they've mapped this whole thing out as best they know.

fourthly we see something very interesting. The rebuke by the Savior. The rebuke by the Savior. Look what it says.

And he said to them O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. That is a puzzling response.

astonishing. I mean if I were Jesus I would unblind them and say guys don't be depressed.

Let's hug. Right? We'd have a moment right there before we even were five minutes into our walk. That's what I would have done.

I would have revealed myself to them. I would have shown them. We would have had a moment right there and hugged each other and all of this. The last thing I would have done to my depressed, distressed, struggling friends is rebuke them.

That's a puzzling thing that Jesus does. He rebukes them. He calls them foolish. But it says, verse 25, he said to them, O foolish men.

The fool is someone who does not have the fear of God in them. The fool, according to Proverbs, is someone who has the truth and the truth is given to him but he doesn't employ it in his life.

He rejects it and follows after his own thoughts and his own mind. The fool is lazy. The fool refuses to take truth and live by it. If a wise or prudent person in the Proverbs is someone who lives by the truth, the fool does the exact opposite.

Then Jesus accuses them of even worse. What's he say? They're not just fools. They're slow of heart to believe all of the prophets have spoken.

In other words, he says, your heart doesn't believe the Bible, does it? Your heart is not trusting the word of God.

What an amazing thing that Jesus does here. He rebukes them. He rebukes them. This passage is so shocking to people and so unlike the Jesus that they heard about and grew up with.

It's so unlike the Jesus they learned about on VBS growing up. It's so unlike the Jesus that was always presented to them that they literally just elide this from Scripture. They literally delete it.

That's not the Jesus. Well, there's got to be some explanation. Jesus would never rebuke these struggling people. Never would he do that. And literally, again, scholars have taken their magic markers and marked this out because that's not the Jesus they like to hear about.

They don't like to hear about a Jesus who rebukes. What Jesus does here, they would say, is borderline rude. It's angry. He's calling them foolish and rebellious. How could Jesus do this?

Why would Jesus do this? Two things I think why Jesus would rebuke them. Number one, because any rebellion, no matter how small or how justified or how glossed over, is shockingly and astonishingly foolish and wrong.

Any rebellion. We like to take our rebellion and our sin and minimize it. And say, it's really not that big of a deal. What I've done, it's no big deal.

God will just pass over them. I heard someone say one time, you know, I've had an affair with such and such and actually I've had several affairs and I questioned him on this and he says, well, God will forgive me.

That's what God does. As if God just owes him forgiveness and it's okay. And we treat God the same way. He owes us for it. We're okay.

Our sin is not that bad. And we gloss over our rebellion. And I think Jesus, his astonishing reply and his shocking rebuke is to show us how shocking and astonishing any rebellion is.

In other words, we need to be serious about our own sin. The second reason why I think Jesus responded in this way is because for Jesus to let them see their sin in this manner is a profound act of mercy.

Is it not? This rebuke is a profound act of mercy.

Dear Christian, was the rebuke in your conviction of sin just prior to salvation, was that not mercy? It was painful.

You didn't like it. Your flesh didn't want it. You hated it. You didn't like it. You wanted to be over with as fast as possible, but it was merciful. And without it, you would never have learned the truth.

You would never have heard the gospel. You would never have listened to the saving words of life. Had the rebuke of God not come down upon you strongly and shockingly.

So Jesus doing this was a profound act of mercy. May we see any rebuke of God as love.

The Lord disciplines the child he loves. We get to modern day Christianity and we think that we shouldn't ever be rebuked.

In fact, we get to a point where we think that all that should happen when we go to the word of God, all that should happen when we go to the scripture, whether in at home or at the church, we think that all that happens should be encouragement and kindness and good and a nice moral story.

And the fact of the matter is, whenever we confront a holy God, we ought to always be rebuked. Always. And we shouldn't see it as something bad. We ought to say, thank you, Lord.

Lord, I need your rebuke because I need to repent. Thank you, Lord. So I believe Jesus did this because this was a profound act of mercy on their behalf.

To show them their sin. To show them that they had put together all these things in a faulty way. They'd missed the point. So he rebukes them.

The depressed believers, the hidden Savior, the piercing questions, the rebuke by the Savior. Fifthly, the exposition of scripture. He could not expose scripture, by the way.

He could not explain scripture until they first were rebuked and were brought to a point where they were teachable. Where they were willing to hear the teaching of the word of God. They rebuked.

They repented. They said, Lord, teach us in their hearts. Lord, teach us. And then he could teach them. Right? So he begins to teach them. The next verse.

Verse 26. Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? And he's not talking about earthly glory, is he?

He's talking about heavenly glory. Jesus dying, being resurrected, going up, sitting at the right hand of God, having all spiritual authority. That's what Jesus is talking about. He's not talking about this earthly thing.

And they've missed the point of the whole thing. And he explains that to them in the next verse. Verse 27. He begins with Moses. Or it tells us he explains it.

Then beginning with Moses. That doesn't mean he begins with the story of Moses. He begins with Moses' writings, which begins in Genesis 1.1. Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself and all the scriptures.

He begins at the beginning of the Bible. And let me tell you something. He did not, Jesus did not go through the Bible and treat it like Aesop's fables or something.

You know, every story has a moral, you know, we got some good things. You need to be nicer. These are some things you need to do to be a good person. No. All of the scripture pointed to him.

Right? Everything that happened pointed to him. I mean, you think about it. From the very beginning, he was promised. Really, before the beginning, as we find out later in Colossians and Ephesians and Romans, that he was before the beginning.

And he was there as creator. And Jesus starts at the beginning and he teaches them that he is in scripture. And I think, really, I do.

I think there is a problem in a lot of our Christian literature. Because it takes all of these stories in the Old Testament, even in the New Testament, and it just breaks them down to just a moral story.

And our kids grow up and they never see the centrality of Jesus Christ in scripture. They miss the point and they grow up. And we scratch our heads and wonder why they think they can be good and get to heaven.

Well, that is all we have taught them. But Jesus teaches them the life-giving truth. And that is, he is the center of scripture. And every book and every chapter and in every verse and in every word and every verse, Jesus is there.

And Jesus begins to teach them. Beginning with Genesis 1-1, he teaches them. Let's just imagine what he would have taught them for a moment.

Let's just imagine what Jesus had taught them. I would love to have been in a visible being there, just listening to Jesus' expository scripture.

And that's all it is. Expositional preaching, expository preaching, same thing. You can give all kinds of long definitions, and I think there is a place for that. But quite frankly, it is just explaining scripture.

That's all it is. It is going through scripture and explaining it. And any person who doesn't do that is not preaching. They are telling stories. They are doing their thing. They are talking about themselves. They are doing whatever.

If they stand up and do anything but explain scripture, they are not preaching. Well, Jesus preached here. He stopped asking questions and teaching. He began to preach to them.

He began to teach them by explaining scripture. Let's think about what he would have taught. He would have taught them that man had fallen and was in need of a savior.

I would imagine Jesus, especially in this glorified state, could quote any of the Old Testament. So I would suspect that in this situation, Jesus was quoting scripture.

And he would have quoted out of Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve fell. But just as they fell, there was a response by God to promise a savior.

And Jesus would have talked about that promise. He would have talked about the fact that even there in the Garden of Eden, it was required for their nakedness and sin to be covered. There was blood shed.

There was required blood shed. An animal had to die for their nakedness and sin to be covered. He would have carried that idea of atonement and sin being covered by blood.

He would have carried that idea all the way into the law of Moses and would have discussed all the different rules and regulation and laws and sacrifices. He would have explained that to them, that all these things point to Jesus.

The idea that a lamb was required for the forgiveness of sins. The idea that in all the laws that man could not find righteousness and continued no matter how righteous they were, even the priests and scribes, even the rulers of Israel were required a very special sacrifice.

Their sins had to be atoned for. I'm sure he talked to them about the atonement lamb. I'm sure he talked to them about the scapegoat. I'm sure he talked to them about, though there were promises about the political domination of the coming Messiah, he would have talked to them about the fact that Isaiah prophesied that there would be a suffering servant, that he would come and by his stripes we would be healed.

I'm sure Jesus would have talked to them about the Passover dinner, the pascal lamb and the breaking of bread.

And he would have pointed everything to himself, though they didn't know it was pointing to him. He would have pointed everything to Jesus Christ. Jesus' teaching was different.

We're told in at least three other places in Scripture that his teaching was different and it burned within people. It angered a lot of people, made a lot of people mad, but it burned in a good way in a lot of people.

And that's what happened with these men. They heard his teaching and they were so attracted to it. They loved it. They couldn't get it. It didn't matter if he rebuked them. They took that rebuke and loved it.

They said, this is what we need. We need to hear what you're saying. And they listened and they heard it as life. And they said, we want to hear this. And we want to hear more of it.

So Jesus teaches them. The sixth thing that we see in this passage is the miraculous gift of spiritual sight.

The miraculous gift of spiritual sight. They get to a point where, I guess, two and a half hours down the road, they finally made their way to Emmaus. They get to Emmaus and it says in verse 20a, they approached the village where they were going.

And he acted as though he were going further. I wonder why Jesus was doing that. He literally says he pretended that he was going further. I think Jesus was testing him.

Now Jesus knew the outcome. God had inspired them. Jesus knew all that. But he was giving them a test. From their perspective, this was a test. He had come to them. He had rebuked them.

He had taught them from Scripture. And this was a test. He would walk away. And he could walk away.

And he was going to walk away. From their perspective, he was going to walk away. This was a test for them. And they passed the test because they begged him to stay.

Verse 29. But they urged him, saying, stay with us. It's almost nighttime. So he went in, verse 29, to stay with them.

Verse 30, it says, when he had reclined at the table. Of course, you know, their tables weren't like ours, with chairs. They were very low to the ground. And they would have pillows around them where you would literally recline. He reclined at the table with them.

He took the bread, blessed it. And breaking it, he began giving it to them.

Verse 31. Then their eyes were opened. Everything came rushing back.

They saw Jesus do this. And the language here indicates that they would have first remembered Christ's blessing.

The two different groups on the hillside in Galilee. Two different hillsides in Galilee where he broke the bread. He blessed it. And it multiplied. So this all happened in just milliseconds.

But it became rushing back into their brains. They saw that. They remembered the last Passover that was the Lord's Supper. And they remember the disciples, the apostles, talking about Jesus breaking the bread and saying, this is my flesh broken for you.

And the idea of the atonement became rushed back into their brain. And all of these things began to flood their mind. And all the things that Jesus taught them about the atonement lamb and the sacrifice and the blood and the remission of sins and forgiveness, all of that became rushing back into their brain.

And it says their eyes were opened. And they saw Jesus.

And he wasn't dead. And he wasn't a corpse carried off by the Romans. And he wasn't some trick. He was alive. Jesus was alive.

And right there in front of them, it was being unveiled to them. And all of the truth of Scripture, all of the reality of the atonement and the reality of the cross and the sacrifice and the shedding of blood and the atonement and the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, all of it came back to them.

And they saw him. They cried out, as the song said earlier, I can see the resurrected Savior. And they saw the Savior.

Interestingly, as soon as they saw him, he vanished. And they ran off, it says in the following verses, and they told the rest of the disciples that they had seen Jesus.

Well, how do we apply this story? Two simple applications to two different groups of people. Everybody in this room falls in one of two of these categories. The first category is if you are a believer.

If you are a believer, you ought to revel in the resurrection. Think about Cleopas and his friend. Let me tell you something. They told this story every day for the rest of their life.

This filled them with such joy that they had seen Jesus, that they had been rebuked, that they saw Scripture, that it all came to them, and they saw the resurrected Lord. They told this to everybody the rest of their life.

They were thrilled. And their story is still being told today, 2,000 years later. And shouldn't we revel?

Shouldn't we find our joy in Christ as Christians? We don't find joy in having things, do we?

Oh, we do, but wrongfully so, right? We shouldn't revel in how much stuff we have. My life would be a whole lot happier if I drove a nicer car.

That's not joy, is it? It's a sad existence if stuff is your joy. And Christians, you know this. Believers, you know this. You know that when those things become your aim, suddenly your life gets very unhappy.

By the way, unbelievers, you know the same thing. Oh, unbelievers can act real happy, and they can sort of trick themselves psychologically into believing they're happy, and they can go to their deathbed and literally end up in hell with a smile on their face, which is erased immediately, thinking that they're happy.

But Christians, you know that your joy is not found in stuff. It's not found in what others think of you, is it? It's not found in how people assess you, how people think about you.

Your joy is not found in that. But I was told not long ago that I had stolen somebody's joy. Someone said to me, they came up to me and said, You have stolen my joy.

And I thought to myself, It's sad that I can do that. Not sad for me, even though maybe I did, and maybe I was sinning, but it's really sad for you that I can do that.

That a human being can take your joy away. Some of us Christians, we have bitterness, we have anger, we have frustration, we have spite and malice.

It's all balled up in us, and we can't get rid of it because we're so worried about what people think, and those people control us. Let me tell you, when you find your joy in the resurrection, none of that matters.

Christ is risen. You've seen Him. You can cry out. I can see. I've seen the Christ. He has come to me. He's broken me. He's rebuked me, and He's saved me all in His mercy.

I can see the resurrected Christ. So believers, the application is that we ought to revel in the resurrection. If you're an unbeliever, this is the other category of people here this morning, if you are an unbeliever, what better day than today, Resurrection Sunday, to see Jesus now?

You've maybe heard a bit of a rebuke this morning. You haven't understood what Christ, what all the fuss was all about.

Why people, like we said last week, why people get up and sing about blood? Why do people do that? You haven't figured it out. But maybe this morning, you've heard the rebuke of your own soul.

You feel the weight of your sin pressing down upon you. You've heard the Scriptures explain. You see the Savior before you. My encouragement to you is to believe.

Believe before He vanishes from your sight. Believe. Please may be may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may