Now, there's much to be dismayed concerning the modern church. I have preached countless sermons about the worldliness and the materialism and the superficiality that seems to dominate much of American Christianity. I got an email from the radio station manager on WOSM. He said that the message that I sent to him was very controversial at the end of Luke 1. And he said he wanted to look at it before he put it on the air. It was about the song of Zacharias. And how Zacharias saw the new covenant in what he was talking about. So he said, I'll just put another one on. So he put one on about abortion. And I said, praise the Lord. Let that one preach. That's fine with me. Because you're talking about jumping out of the fire in the frying pan. So I was really pleased with one he chose to put on there. But there's a lot to be dismayed. Everybody you talk to, they say they're saved. I have had a couple, but very few people say, no, I'm not saved. When I ask them if they were born again. I have cried out against the blatant compromise with biblical truth and against people whom I consider to be frauds and imposters. Men who lay claim to hear from God and yet who preach and teach things that people in the early church fought to defeat. And I routinely denounce the unbelievable cowardice that exists today in the ministry. Jesus called these people hired hands and false prophets. Ezekiel cried out against the pillow prophets who deceived the people of God with messages of ease and comfort. The Bible tells you to woe unto them who are at ease in Zion. In Jude chapter 4, Jesus' half-brother warned us about them when He said, certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter described these people and what they would do in 2 Peter 2, 1-3 where he said, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." According to Ministries Today magazine, a full 45% of all who lead in the modern church reject the virgin birth, the sinless life of Jesus, and the literal, physical, and bodily resurrection. In my lifetime, movements that all came forth from the Reformation have minimized or outright rejected the very core issues that divided us from Rome in the first place. such as unconditional election, which is God's sovereignty and salvation. The authority of sacred Scripture, gone by the code word sola scriptura, in justification by faith alone, which is sola fide. People who not only tolerate, but who celebrate and eagerly engage in sexual perversion are not only allowed to become members of mainline organizations in our day, but they are assuming leadership roles in those groups. The God-given distinctions between men and women are either marginalized or condemned, all in the name of equality, while the scourge of pornography is running roughshod over the men of the church. Marriage is under assault like never before with record numbers of divorces as men have almost universally abandoned the command of the Lord to lead their families spiritually. So there's much to be dismayed over. In fact, if I thought for a second that the success of the Christian church was dependent upon my efforts or my own energy, I would faint. Thank God that we have the promise of Jesus Himself in Matthew 16, 18, who said, I will build My church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. And in Matthew 28, 18, all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. So in spite of all the compromise and the sin, we have the clear promise of the risen Christ that because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, that He is going to build the church for which He lived and died and rose again. And because it is none other than the invincible Christ Himself who is going to build the church, the very gates of Hades will not overpower it. Hallelujah. So we have a promise from a God who cannot lie. That not only is He going to build the church, not only is He going to sovereignly orchestrate the ongoing construction of the church by continuing to save lost sinners by what He alone does for them, but that the same Christ will also keep it. He will work tirelessly to preserve the church that He builds. But we have to understand that the way that Jesus keeps His church, the means by which the Lord Christ preserves what He has built and is continuing to build, is by periodically stirring the hearts of His people to burn within them. And when that burning happens, when God is good to visit His people to set their hearts ablaze with truth, not only would people be saved, but saved people will rise up and they will proclaim the truth. They will strive to live the truth. They will rise up in their righteous might to defend the truth against any and all the raging of our defeated foe. Many today will point out to packed out stadiums and international television audiences as evidence that what I just related to you is not true. They will direct you to amazing things going on in Africa and Asia and say that when someone like me gets on the radio to clearly and repeatedly cry out against the promotion of human sensuality over biblical spirituality, against the rise and importance of the self of man over against the sovereignty of God and the absolutely supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ, that I'm an alarmist and that I'm blowing things way up out of proportion. But you see, I don't believe that much of what we are witnessing in the world is an explosion of God-ordained passion and genuine heart burning in the modern church. I don't think that biblical Christianity is actually being propagated by much of what is going on. So just what are we seeing? with the advent of more and more activities in the modern church that are designed to entertain and tickle the ears and to appease the sensual desire of the lukewarm and unsaved to be made much of, people are not actually being set ablaze, but instead they are becoming even darker until they die. So all the energy that you see coming forth from the endless music and the light shows and the smoke machines and all of the carnal gimmicks being used today in the church is a manufactured passion. A humanly engineered earnestness. A contrived fervency. And while those things have the power to make you jump up and down, they do not have the power to transform the human soul. and they do not set your heart ablaze. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, verses 6 and 7, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again. The only thing that fallen human beings can bring forth in, by, and through their own efforts is more fallen human beings. Flesh cannot produce spirit. It doesn't have the power. It never has and never will. Flesh can only produce more flesh. So no matter how you try to beef up your programs, no matter how you try to make them edgy and more intense and culturally relevant, no matter how you package it, no matter how you seek to make it look new and improved, no matter how much effort you put into it, no matter how you try to sanctify it, flesh will never be anything other than flesh. And flesh will never produce spirit. Humanly engineered activities cannot take a dead, fallen sinner and transform him into somebody who is willing to die for Jesus. Humanly orchestrated motivation or manipulation cannot cause the human heart to burn with passion, to hate sin, and to love and serve the risen Christ. You do not have to be saved to go to church. You do not have to be saved to sing hymns. You do not have to be saved to enjoy church music. You don't have to be saved to preach. You don't have to be saved to sing in the choir. You don't have to be saved to build churches. You have to be saved to love Jesus. Only God can do that. And the Apostle Paul taught in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and 4. You ought to read those. You ought to memorize those two chapters. Those are the best chapters in the entire New Testament that talks about why we preach and what happens when we preach. 2 Corinthians chapters 3 and 4. And the Apostle Paul taught there that God does that through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit combined with the ongoing preaching and teaching of the biblical gospel. And that combination results in the veil that is over the eyes being removed so that blind people can behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So to bring people from being self-centered rebels to broken and humble bondslaves of Jesus Christ, who follow the Lamb wherever He goes, requires a sovereign, supernatural act of God. It takes the miracle of the new birth. Hallelujah. Here in Luke 24, 32, these two men experience everything we all need. These two men receive the answer to every single problem that the modern church faces. They were blessed to be able to behold the risen Christ. They were blessed They were gifted to be able to spend time in His presence. And their eyes that at one time were closed, were opened as Jesus revealed Himself to them. And what was their response to all of this? Were not our hearts burning within us? Hallelujah. So what is the real problem in the modern church? What is the one thing that is the root cause of all the compromise and all the sin and all the worldliness? Dr. Luke tells us in verse 16, their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. Do you see how that's written? In other words, they could not see Him. They didn't have the ability to see Him. They were prevented. There's an outside force preventing them from recognizing Him. You've said this, I've said this a thousand times. Well, if these people get down far enough into the ditch, they'll look up and they'll see their need and they'll get saved. No, they won't. Not if God does not open their eyes. This is a blindness that is amazing. It doesn't matter how bad their lives get. It doesn't matter how many years they spend in prison. If God does not open the eyes of the blind, they will not see. And if God opens their eyes, they will see. Hallelujah. And it doesn't matter how bad they've been. Thank you, Jesus. These men could see the miracles, they could hear the teaching, they could see the trial and the beating and the crucifixion, but they couldn't see Jesus. So whatever else they knew, whatever else they understood, whatever else they comprehended, whatever else they could recognize, they couldn't recognize Jesus. They couldn't see Him. Their eyes were closed to the only person that matters. And here's something I want all of you to take heed, and myself. Be careful. Be careful. When you get all wrapped up in the Bible and all wrapped up in theology, that you don't go weeks on weeks on weeks in without talking about Jesus. You talk about sovereign election. You talk about limited atonement. You can talk about efficacious grace. You can talk about all these $3 words. And you don't talk about Jesus. Take heed. Take heed. Whatever else you see, see Jesus. Whatever else you understand, understand the Savior. Because if you don't see Him, nothing else matters. It's all fluff. Their eyes were closed to the only person that matters. But what is it that made men who had spent time with Jesus to be unable to see the Lord? What was going on in these men that made them blind to the glory of the risen Savior? Two things that Jesus told them in verse 25 when He said to them, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe. Foolishness and a slow heart. But if that is true, then what is the answer? What is the answer? What is the solution to us being foolish and slow of heart? What is the answer to blind eyes that easily see the bright lights and the attractions of a fallen world, but which cannot see Jesus? What is the answer to dead, cold, dry, and lifeless people? What is the solution to people just going through their religious motions? What is the remedy for a worldly and sin-sick church? What is it that would allow for fallen human beings to genuinely delight themselves in God? What has to happen to the sons and daughters of Adam? For them to find the fullness of joy and the highest degree of personal satisfaction in being broken before God, in striving to be obedient to what God said, and in trembling at His Word. What has to happen to us for us to see Jesus? several thousands of years earlier, after Job spent 41 chapters protesting his own innocence. Here's what he said in Job 42, verse 5, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. So at that point, Job's eyes were opened and he could see the God that he had heard about his entire life. And what was the result of one of the most upright men on earth at that time being gifted with the ability to behold God? The next verse will tell you, therefore I retract and I repent in dust and ashes. In other words, I take back everything I've just said in 41 chapters. because it's all meaningless. I had not yet beheld the Lord." Now the modern church growth gurus have a program they will be happy to sell to you that promises to add energetic new bodies to the pews of your church. There seems to be no end to the tools and resources and gimmicks and ideas out there that promises to have the remedy for hearts that have grown cold and lifeless. But if we were to boil all of them down, if we were to focus on one thing, we might simply ask a simple but profound question. What has the power to cause the human heart to be set ablaze with the majesty and wonder and beauty and awe of God? What makes a wicked, fallen rebel fall in love with Jesus? What has to happen? What has the ability to take a spiritually dead soul and make them live and that would make them sing about and rejoice in and thrive in and enjoy God? What has the ingredient that we need to no longer be amazed and to wonder after things that have been made and that are passing away, but to burn in our hearts toward God and the things that bring Him glory? What can open our eyes so that we may behold Jesus? At some point, we're all going to have to understand that the language that speaks about human hearts that are set on fire for God is not Christianese. It's the language of the Bible. The terminology that portrays people who hunger and thirst after righteousness. People who pant after God like a deer pants after the water brooks. The people who search through the city at night to find Him whom my soul loves is the language of God the Holy Spirit. It is the language of people who have been gifted with having their eyes opened so they can see the Lord. So the heart that burns is the result of having the eyes opened so that Jesus is seen. And that means that the first thing to having a heart that is ablaze is not the heart that is ablaze. That is the result, not the cause. In order for people to genuinely delight themselves in the Lord, God must sovereignly open our closed and blinded eyes so we may see Jesus. And in order for God to do that, He must overwhelm our foolishness with His wisdom. And He must take out of us the heart that is slow to believe and give us the heart that we may believe quickly and easily. All of my treasure, You could look at all of my treasure, all of my accumulated value in this life, and you could look at it as a six-month-old peanut butter and jelly sandwich that's been in the back seat of my car for six months in the heat with people sitting on it. That is the sum total of my value in this world. And God is giving me a seven-course meal of the finest food in the universe. And I feel slighted because I can't have my P, B, and J. That's how you understand sin. To stand and behold the magnificence of God's glory. to see Him in His beauty, to see Him in His risen glory, and then say, no thank you Jesus, I'd rather have that. You can't insult God any worse than that. Being a sinner is not being a mass murderer, or being a drug dealer, or being a pedophile. Being a sinner is loving something other than the glory of God. It is enjoying something beside God. It is reaching the zenith of your worldly life with the zeal and the excitement that you have when you accomplish something in something other than God. You cannot belittle God any more than that. You cannot trample His glory. You cannot be more ugly than that. You cannot be more evil than that. That makes you wicked. That makes you dirty. That makes you an enemy of God. The audacity of clay arguing with God about what is valuable. The audacity of sand having the unmitigated gall to stand and shake their fist in the face of an infinite Creator and arguing about what we ought to love and what we ought to spend time with. The fact that God would tolerate us for a second is a miracle. The fact that God would spend any time at all with any of us is amazing. So don't push Him. So don't push Him. Because He doesn't have to deal with you. Be grateful for God. Value Him. That's what salvation does. I'm going to tell you this again. This is one of the most important things you can ever learn about Christianity. Christianity does not tell you that when you strive real hard to be obedient to God, that you have been obedient to God. Until you delight in God. God is not honored. There's a nice man in a uniform that parks behind a bush up where I live. And he helps people obey the sign that's on the road that's got a number on it. He's used to assist them in feeling led to reach that number on that little thing on your car and not go more than that. He's a tool that's useful. He has pretty lights and he does all kind of nice things. Gets you an autograph thing that you can take to the courthouse and it costs you about $225. I know. My right foot hadn't got sanctified yet. And when I see Him, I feel led to obey. God takes no glory in that kind of obedience. That's obedience out of fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of paying the fine. That does not honor Jesus Christ. That dishonors Him. The only obedience that honors God is when you run to Him. What would You have me to do, Father? I am so glad I belong to You. What is it that You would like from me? I'd be so happy to do it. I'd be so happy to start this. I'd be so happy to stop that if I just knew You would be pleased by it. That's the only obedience that Jesus is honored by. That takes a miracle for us to be like that. That is what salvation does. I can get Muslims and fill these pews who would sit here very orderly, and they would honor Jesus Christ with their words. And they could sing hymns, and they could bow at appropriate moments. That's not salvation. Salvation is delighting in God. What has to happen to us to cause us to delight in Him? That's salvation. That is what honors God. That is the heart that is ablaze. So the heart that burns is the result of having eyes opened so Jesus is seen. And that means that the first thing to having a heart that is ablaze is not the heart that is ablaze. That is the result, not the cause. In order for people to genuinely delight themselves in the Lord, God must sovereignly open our closed and blinded eyes so that we may see Jesus. And in order for God to do that, He must overwhelm our foolishness with His wisdom. He must take out of us the heart that is slow to believe and give us a heart that we may believe quickly with and easily. So, it is the beholding of Jesus that creates the burning heart. It is the beholding of Jesus that causes the faithfulness. It is the beholding of Jesus that causes the fruitfulness. It is the beholding of Jesus that causes a strong, vibrant, godly, and holy man to love and lead and order his home. It is the beholding of Jesus in that family that will transform the visible church. It is the beholding of Jesus in that church on an ongoing basis that will transform the culture. And it is the beholding of Jesus in that culture that will transform the nation. But that means that revival or spiritual awakening or hearts burning within us does not start in Washington D.C. or with politics or with the Supreme Court judges or with laws. Revival starts with God sovereignly doing only what God can do to rescue us from being foolish and slow of heart and to open our eyes that we may see Jesus. That's what happened with that motley crew of the most unqualified men that the world had ever seen that turned them into the steadfast spiritual giants who became the very foundation of the Christian church. Jesus called them apostles. And they saw the risen Christ. They beheld Jesus in His glory. Their eyes were opened to the beauty and the magnificence and the darling of the Trinity. And they were willing to die over it. In fact, dying over it was a pleasure. And their hearts burned within them. And they changed the world. The passage that brother Andy just read to you contains one of the most beautiful moments in Jesus' entire ministry. The account of two despondent disciples who are radically and eternally transformed by an encounter with Jesus as they walk together on the road that led to a city called Emmaus. Look again at verse 13. And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. So Dr. Luke is clear that this event happened on that very day. So this event occurred on Sunday, the very day that Jesus rose from the dead. And that tells us that they were Jews who had rested on the Sabbath, and now the day after the Sabbath they were on their journey. Now just why these two men were traveling to that village called Emmaus has been lost to us. Maybe they lived there. I don't know. But we are told that where they were going was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And from that we know that both of these two men had been in Jerusalem and were now leaving Jerusalem and heading toward Emmaus. So they had been in the city that David had called the habitation of peace during the time that God's chosen people, the Jews, had categorically rejected the incarnate God and had goaded Pilate and the Romans to have Him murdered. You can't escape the irony of this. They murdered the incarnate God in the city called the Habitation of Peace. So it is very possible that both of these men were genuine believers. And they had just witnessed a man whom they considered to be the long-awaited Messiah, taken and beaten and then crucified. And we know that because of what Luke tells us next. And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place. So they were relating together all of the things they had seen and heard over the last several days. Wouldn't you have been Now there's no doubt in my mind that they were personally invested in all of this. So this was not just an academic discussion about events outside of themselves. This was personal. They had just watched their Savior die. So now what are they supposed to do? How should they process all of this? What's the next step? It's very possible that their journey back to Emmaus was similar to Peter's journey back to his fishing business. Everything they had hoped for and invested in and believed and trusted was now shattered. Jesus was dead. And they were going to go home and get back to their lives they had abandoned and just try to forget it all. And I want to tell you something. There are millions of people in the United States like that right now. They were on fire for God at one time in their life and they were in a church and something happened in that church and they got hurt. And you can't pay them to go to church right now. They don't darken the door of a church, and they know more probably the Bible than I do. And their excuse is, I got hurt. You don't understand, I got hurt. And I've met hundreds of them, all over Gulfport. And I'm trying my best to tell them, you don't have any excuse. Being hurt in church is part of the package. How about that? That's right. And here's the insulting part. Two things are going to happen to you when you're in church for any length of time. You're going to get hurt, and you're going to hurt somebody else. You're both the hurtee and the hurter. That's right. That's right. So don't say, oh, I got hurt. I got hurt. That's right. Just give yourself time. You're going to hurt somebody else. That's right. You're going to insult somebody else? You're going to offend somebody else because of what you did or what you didn't do? And let me tell you right off the bat so everybody knows, I am horribly offended at you because you don't come to church. So you're offending me right off the bat. So come back to church, repent for sinning, and serve God. What do you want me to do, Brother Blair? Just serve God when I'm hurt? Yep. And offer sacrifices of praise. That's exactly what Jesus expects you to do. I'm glad you asked. Amen to that. Amen to that. Because not only do I want you to serve God hurt, I want you to serve God if you die. Amen. Praise the Lord. So you see, you just don't have any excuse anymore not to serve God. Isn't that wonderful? Praise the Lord. Mabel, I told you we shouldn't have come here today. That's alright. That's alright. You're here. So just give me a chance and I'll offend you. So they were walking and they began to go over. And about that time, something happened that Luke tells us about in verses 15-17. While they were walking and talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. What a coincidence, right? Right. But their eyes were prevented. Next time somebody gets mad at you about sovereign election, ask them this question. All you've got to do is ask this question. Why did Jesus speak to them in parables? What was the reason he gave as to why he spoke to the people in parables? So that everybody would not understand him. If you get offended at sovereign election, you're really going to get offended at Jesus. Jesus said things like that all the time, didn't He? And that's why people just left Him and stand in the middle of the road. So, will you go away also? I got nowhere to go. I was going to hell when He found me. Praise the Lord. He's the best thing that ever happened to me. And verse 17 said, And He said to them, What are these words that you're exchanging with one another as you're walking? And they stood still, looking sad. This is personal. So the resurrected Jesus just walks up to them and acts like nothing's going on. And then He asks them what they're talking about. And Luke is faithful to tell us two things about these men. Their eyes were prevented from recognizing Jesus, and they were sad. Now look at what Luke wrote next. 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 thing? He didn't lie. What are you talking about? And they said to him, the things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word in the sight of God in all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him. Now, I mentioned a few weeks ago that some biblical scholars say that the name Clopas that is found over in John 19.25 where it says Mary was the wife of Cleopas. And this Cleopas here in Luke 24 is the same guy. Some say that Cleopas is simply a Hellenized form of an Aramaic name, Clopa or Clopha, and that Cleopas' name is an abbreviated form of Cleopatros, a Greek name meaning glory of the Father, and is most famously known in its feminine form as Cleopatra. Some teach that Clopas or Cleopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. While others teach that Clopas or Cleopas or Cleophas was just different renderings of the name Alpheus, which would make this man in Luke 24 the father of the apostle who was called James, the son of Alpheus. And the only reason we have to go through it, because English is just a crazy language, and all these other languages are very precise, and we've translated them from Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English. And so you lose some things. Now, this Gospel record was written about A.D. 60 or 61, which would have been about 30 years after all these things happened. And Luke tells us back in chapter 1 that he took the time to write an orderly account of everything that Jesus said and did. And we know that the good doctor interviewed many of the witnesses so that he could give Theophilus and us a reliable account. So one of the reasons that Luke would have mentioned Cleopas by name here is that he might have interviewed this man to get this account, which is why it's found nowhere else. Another reason would be that by the time Luke wrote this gospel, Cleopas would have been someone whom most of the people of the church would have known about. Now the fact that Cleopas called Jesus a prophet in verse 19 may indicate that at that time he really didn't believe that Jesus was God. But using that word may simply be part of what Cleopas believed about Jesus and not that he was actually denying Christ's deity. But in any event, look at what Cleopas... I'd have to talk to him to find out because you don't know just by what's written here. Look what he told Jesus in Luke 24 verse 21. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Meaning, they do not understand the death of Jesus as being associated with redemption. Huh? We don't associate the death of Jesus with anything other than redemption. They didn't connect the two. Indeed, beside all this, it is the third day since these things happened, meaning he's dead and gone and that's the end of it. We're done. It's over. Now this shows you the depth to which the men who had spent time with Jesus and whose supposed beliefs still didn't understand. Cleopas and this other man still thought that the Messiah was going to militarily deliver or save them. So to them, salvation was a natural and physical event that had nothing to do with saving them from their sins, but would rescue them from their Gentile enemies. And this tells us that even now, Cleopas had bought into the Jewish false teaching that they were spiritually saved by being born Jewish rather than by grace through faith. Now this gets me in trouble every time I say this. I want to be real clear about it so you can really get me in trouble. This false belief about salvation is prevalent in the Jews today. They honestly believe they are Abraham's seed by birth. and therefore they are right with God by virtue of their ethnicity and have no need, whatever, to repent and put their trust in Jesus to allow them to pass through God's judgment. This is the very heart of their religion. And so, if you love these people and you want to see them saved, you have to do to them what Jesus did. He attacked them at their strongest point. He attacked them at what they valued the most. The Sabbath and their relationship with God. And that's where Jesus attacked these people. Because the only way they're going to get saved is to know they're lost. And the only way they're going to know they're lost is to know their doctrine is false. That's it. So it is their firm belief in a salvation that comes about through their physical and natural birth as Jews that prevents them from seeking the salvation that comes about through Jesus Christ and the miracle of the new birth. So until the Jew is brought by God to the place where they can utterly abandon their man-made religion, they have no hope. And this is why I tell you that Jews today do not worship the one true living God. They are not following the teachings of the Old Testament. Judaism as we know it today is utterly pagan and entirely man-made. And it is completely wrong about salvation. And there is nothing that is taught in modern Judaism that would lead any sinner to faith in Jesus Christ. Now when I say that, people say I'm being anti-Semitic. I've never run away from fights. You're going to really have to push me to get in a fight with you. I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm not trying to down anybody. I'm trying to speak the truth. I want people to be saved. And because they were deceived about their own sinful condition and God's requirement for salvation, faith in a dead and risen Messiah meant nothing to them. So when they saw Jesus die, all hope that He was the One was destroyed. But now look at how they related to Jesus. The testimony that they had heard from the women who had experienced the resurrected Lord just a few hours earlier. Look at Luke 24, 22-24. But also, this is them talking to Jesus now. But also some of the women among us amazed us. when 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. Now listen to this, 24. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, Peter and John, and found it just exactly as the women also had said, but him they did not see. So they were with the apostles, these two guys. Now by mentioning this to a man that they assumed didn't know anything, tells us that the testimony from these women had quite an impact on them. And so their words may have been mixed with a measure of hope as they related what the women had told them. In verse 22, Cleopas told Jesus that what the women had told them amazed us. So here's what I'm trying to tell you. I think that these two guys were all over the map. I think on the one hand, they were totally dejected and despondent, ready to give up. On the other hand, they were amazed and they were hopeful. And they were saying, maybe something else is going to happen. We don't know. And they were all over the place at this moment. And then they said, some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said. So verse 24 tells us that Cleopas and the other man had actually been with the apostles and the genuine disciples when the women came from the tomb. And Dr. Luke tells us it was at this moment that Jesus spoke up and He said this, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Have you noticed how Jesus talks to people? He never said, I know you guys are trying. I'm going to give you three points for being close. This is like horseshoes. If you get a leaner, it counts. It's like atomic bombs. You can drop an atomic bomb somewhere in the vicinity of the target and it's fine. It'll still blow everything up. So if you're close theologically, you can go to heaven. You don't have to worry about being right. You can just be, you know, Jesus is Lord. That's all you've got to know, right? And so he's rebuking them. Now, they're already despondent. You ever talk to a despondent person? Now, we're not the Lord and I understand that. But Jesus never said, oh, cheer up. It's going to be okay. Let's go eat a burger. Let's go watch the game. He says foolish men, slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. You don't know the Bible! Now that's the first thing He said to them. The second thing is, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory? Now the word Christ here, he said Messiah. He said Misha. He didn't say Christ. That's an English translation. Wasn't it necessary for the real Messiah to suffer these things and to enter into His glory? In other words, are you begrudging that I am now glorified? That's what your problem is? And so what he's telling them, salvation is about me being glorified. It's not about you feeling better about yourselves. Their whole entire concept of salvation was wrong. And because Jesus loved them, He told them that. What do you think, folks? Maybe we ought to follow Jesus in the pattern He uses. Huh? Then what did he do? He didn't just rebuke them. He sat down with them, beginning with Moses and all the prophets. Now when it says Moses and the prophets, you know what that means? Thirty-nine books. So this didn't happen in three minutes. Moses is the first five books. When it says Moses and the prophets, that's the entire Old Testament. He explained to them, listen to this, the things concerning Himself! In all the Scriptures. That's all we had then, right? 39 books. It really actually was less than 39 books. Now what Jesus is saying here in verse 25 is that these two Jewish disciples of Jesus did not understand or believe what the Old Testament prophets said concerning the Messiah. They were wrong about the Old Testament. Right? Which is the only books they had. Okay. Evidently what the Old Testament prophets had prophesied about the Messiah was either too amazing or too far fetched for them to believe. So they just cast it off. And some of this has to do with the fact that the Old Testament believers had a very vague and unspecific understanding about the Trinity. So for example their rock solid belief that the one true and living God who was revealed in the thirty nine books of the Old Testament was one actually prevented them from grasping the truth that the promised Messiah would also be fully deity. And this is why we need to never be satisfied with the knowledge that we have. We never should rest or become comfortable with whatever level of understanding we have about the truth of Scripture. Partial truth or truth that is mixed with human ingenuity or human reasoning can be as bad and as off-base as not knowing anything. We must continue to read and study and ask questions and ponder and continually refine what we believe and why we believe it until it is razor sharp and wholly biblical. The saints of the Old Testament had divine truth. God had chosen to reveal Himself to them. And that means that every single word in the Old Testament is true and reliable and trustworthy. Every word in the 39 books of the Old Testament is inspired and inerrant and infallible. But in addition to the Old Testament being true, it is also incomplete. It is not the full revelation of God. It is not the final statement by God about anything. The 39 books of the Old Testament are a partial and therefore inferior revelation of God in His ways that God finalized through the 27 books of the New. I was talking with Pastor Reason. He said, I got you, Brother Blair. All we need to know about creation is in the first three chapters of Genesis. Got you. We don't need the New Testament. Yes, you do. You need what Peter, Peter explained what Genesis Chapter 2 says and how Genesis Chapter 1 and how God created light out of darkness. Until Peter said that, you didn't know how he did it. You just knew he did it. So without Peter, you don't understand Genesis 1 or Genesis 2. Hallelujah. Now as the canon of Scripture was being received by the church and compiled, there were a number of people who wanted to throw the Old Testament away. And their reasoning was that since the 27 books of the New Testament contains the final full and completed revelation of God to man, we really don't need the 39 books of the Old Testament anymore. Thank God their efforts were not successful. because we need the Old Testament. The fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that we find in the New Testament through Jesus Christ would not make any sense unless we had the prophecies themselves in the Old. The infinitely superior New Covenant would not make much sense without understanding the inferior Old or the First Covenant. The salvation of Jesus in the new would not make much sense if we didn't understand the divine condemnation of the old. And the glorious good news of forgiveness of sins and a new heart through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that we find in the New Testament would merely be interesting if we didn't understand the infinitely bad news of God's wrath against sinners that we find in the Old Testament. So without the New Testament, the old leaves us hopeless, and without the Old Testament, the new leaves us bewildered. But what Jesus is telling these two men here in Luke 24 and us, is that if you read and understand the Old Testament correctly, you will come to Jesus Christ. Because ultimately, everything in the Old Testament is about Jesus. Where did I get that from? Jesus said that. Hallelujah. And that means that if the net effect of you reading and studying and believing in the 39 books of the Old Testament is that you do not see Jesus, if all your effort to learn Hebrew and to comprehend the law of God is that you do not come to Jesus, If all you get by knowing all the details of the Levitical priesthood and the worship of God under the first covenant is that you do not see salvation as being in Jesus alone, then you are deceived about what you are reading and studying. Because a correct reading of the Old Testament books will always and in all cases lead you to Jesus. The old priest Zacharias was gifted to know that his son John the Baptist was going to usher in the infinitely superior new covenant by paving the way for the Messiah, because in Luke 1, 76-79. This is what he did on the radio this morning. This is the passage he did on the radio this morning. Luke 1, 76-79, here's what he said. And you child, he's talking to John in his arms, right? And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give His people the knowledge of salvation." How? By the forgiveness of their sins. Because of the tender mercy of our God with which the sunrise from on high will visit us. That's new covenant. That's not the Mosaic Covenant. That's not the Noahic Covenant. That's not the Abrahamic Covenant. That's the New Covenant. Look what He said, To shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace. That's the promise of the New Covenant. Hallelujah. So the phrases that he uses, the salvation by the forgiveness of sins in verse 77, the tender mercy of our God with which the sunrise from on high will visit us in verse 78, that will shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, and that will guide our feet in the way of peace in verse 79, have absolutely nothing to do with the covenant that God made to Noah, Abraham, or Moses. This is a description of the new covenant. So six months before Jesus was even born, Zacharias knew that he would be the fulfillment of Isaiah 9. How did he know that? God opened his eyes and he saw. So Zacharias could see Jesus in the Old Testament. In Luke 2, an old man named Simeon whom Luke said, was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon Him. So He's righteous and devout, and He's looking. He's looking for the consolation of Israel. Huh? He came into the temple in Jerusalem just at the moment that Joseph and Mary were circumcising their eight-day-old baby Jesus. What a coincidence. Just so happened. Yeah. Bunch of coincidences in the Bible, isn't it? Yeah, aren't you glad you espouse human free will? Amen. And Luke tells us, and look, it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when his parents brought in the child Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, this old man reached... Now, you knew mamas? You walk into a building and an old man walks up to you and takes your baby out of your arms. Only, no, he doesn't. Right? Right? Right? Who are you doing, man? What are you doing? Get my baby. Right? An old man walks up to her and took Jesus in his arms. And he blessed God and said, Now, Lord, You are releasing Your bondservant to depart in peace according to Your Word. Why? Because my eyes have seen Your salvation. You're right here. Eight-day-old baby, I've seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. Here in verse 30, Simeon calls the eight-day-old Jesus, your salvation. And in verse 32, he calls this baby, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. which means that Simeon was sovereignly given the ability to know that this little baby boy was the fulfillment of five separate Old Testament passages. So Simeon was sovereignly given the ability to see Jesus in the Old Testament. Now neither Simeon nor Anna nor Zacharias heard a single sermon by Jesus. They never witnessed Him perform a single miracle. They didn't see the crucifixion and had very little understanding about the resurrection. And yet they believed that Jesus was the Messiah and they knew that the Old Testament passages were fulfilled in Him. And that means that the Jews and the Muslims and others of our day who read and study the Old Testament rigidly and yet never see Jesus and they never come to Jesus for salvation are deceived about what they are reading. The veil is upon their eyes, Paul said. Their understanding about what the Old Testament says is wrong. How do I know that? Because they cannot see Jesus in the Old Testament. And whatever else you might see, if you don't see Jesus, it's all a waste of time. And all those wayward cults that supposedly start out as Christian and yet get all tangled up in Old Testament truth to the point where they abandon three primary issues, the full inspiration of the 27 books of the New Testament, the deity of Jesus Christ, and justification by faith alone apart from keeping the law of God are all deceived. The next time you meet somebody who tells you he's messianic, You need to ask him those three questions. Do you believe that the New Testament in all twenty seven books is fully inspired. Yes or no. He will tell you he does not believe that. Is Jesus Christ God Almighty in human flesh. He will tell you he does not believe that. And then how how is a lost person justified he'll say by keeping the law of God. That's exactly what they teach the ultimate these little. They're Gentiles but they call themselves Messianic. They're all over here all in South Mississippi. There's tons of them all over the place. They are not reading the Old Testament correctly or they would see Jesus. All that many of these people get when they read and study the Old Testament is that they need to resurrect the dietary and ceremonial laws that God gave to Israel. They need to keep the Jewish Sabbath and they need to be obedient to the law of God in order to earn enough righteousness to enter into heaven. And that means that all of their studying of the precious Old Testament books has done is to draw them away from the truth and into heresy. Now that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the Old Testament. There isn't. What is wrong is what these people think they know about the Old Testament. Jesus says here in Luke 24 that everything in the Old Testament is about Him. Now look at what happened next. There's about 25 sermons in this passage. that I could give you. Have you ever noticed that Jesus will just go on down the way and leave you? You need to want him to be with you. You need to want that. That's what he's looking for. He wants you to want him, not just not just do it. And 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." As soon as they knew it was Him, He left. Now what we can get out of this is that evidently them reclining at the table with Jesus was the catalyst that God used to open their eyes. But regardless of what the catalyst may have been in this case, the main thrust of this passage is that unless and until God sovereignly opens human eyes, we cannot see and we will not see Jesus. So seeing Jesus in His glory is the work of God the Holy Spirit, and it is mandatory if we are going to be the people of God. So part of our ongoing prayer life should be that God would be merciful to open our eyes so we may see Jesus. Now look at the result of this seeing of Jesus. 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? And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, saying, The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon. Now, this was real hard for me. The transition between verse 33 and 34 is very complicated in the original Greek. Verse 34 appears to say that it was the two men who were granted with the ability to see Jesus on the road to Emmaus. They're doing the speaking and they're relating to the 11 how the Lord had appeared to Simon Peter. But in reality, that's not the case. Based on the tense of the verbs here, it is actually the eleven who are telling the two men, as they entered the room all excited about their visitation with the Lord, that Simon Peter has already had a similar experience himself. So here's how this scene would have come down. These two men, Cleopas and the other guy, went straight to Jerusalem to find the remaining apostles so they could tell them how they had seen Jesus. But as they came into the room where the eleven were, it was the eleven who interrupted the two men's excitement by confirming what they saw by telling them that Simon Peter had seen the Lord as well. Now what is fascinating about this is that Simon Peter's visitation with Jesus is not recorded for us. None of the Gospel writers were moved along by God the Holy Spirit to tell us anything about it. The only reason we know that Jesus met personally with Peter is because Dr. Luke tells us right here. And so it was after the eleven confirmed to the two men that not only did they believe him, but that Peter had already had a similar experience, that the two men did what Luke tells us in verse 35. They began to relate their experiences on the road and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of bread. Now, so they run in the room and they say, we saw the Lord! They said, yeah, Peter did too. And they go, what? Well, let me tell you what we did. Let me tell you about us seeing the Lord. I mean, this is an incredible account. So the experience that these two men had on the road to Emmaus was in addition to the experience that Peter had all by himself. And evidently, Peter had related his experience to the others before these two men got there. So what should we make of all this? What set these men's hearts ablaze in the language of Augustine? What captivated their affections was an interpretation of Scripture that put Jesus and His finished work front and center. So in our day, if we are to hope that our own hearts will burn within us, our hearts and minds are going to have to put Jesus front and center through the Scriptures. And this understanding of Christ-centeredness is not new. The Protestant reformer Thomas Cranmer unveiled the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Sister Shirley knows about the Book of Common Prayer. Does anybody else know about the Book of Common Prayer? You do. Three of us in this building. You don't, sister? You do? A little bit. Okay. It's a magnificent book. Nothing but prayers. Somebody loved Jesus 500 years ago when they wrote all these prayers down. You ought to read those prayers. They're amazing. Okay, this was a collection of the first worship services that the English-speaking world had ever heard. And Cranmer wrote a short manifesto on worship in its preface. And there Cranmer proclaimed that the purpose of worship centered on Christ and filled with the Scriptures was to cause worshipers to, quote, be the more inflamed with the love of God's true religion, unquote. Cranmer believed that worship's goal was to set hearts on fire. And so Cranmer designed worship services that made much of Jesus. But how did he do that in his day and how can we do it in ours? Some people have argued that Christ-centered worship simply means singing songs and praying prayers and preaching sermons that make much of Jesus in his finished work. Reformers like Cranmer and theologians like Paul would tell us though that this approach is far too simplistic. they would be more inclined to describe Christ-centered worship as an ongoing cyclical process of two actions that we could call displacement and replacement. Every last one of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, comes into worship on Sunday morning having spent several days consistently placing ourselves at the center of our own lives. This is the logic behind having family worship at home during the week. This is why the Protestants said we need a Sunday evening service. This is why the Reformers said we need a midweek service. because you go too long and you put yourself in the center of your life by trying to make enough money to pay your bills and you're having to make these decisions and those decisions, and then you walk in cold turkey on Sunday morning and you expect to be able to turn that off and turn your worship on. You're not a robot. You can't do it that quick. There has to be a transition. I wrote a sermon about 25 years ago about a suggestion. It's not a command. It's a suggestion. If this is the Lord's Day, then we need to prepare ourselves for the Lord's Day. And you don't prepare yourself for the Lord's Day on the Lord's Day. You prepare yourself for the Lord's Day on Saturday. And so perhaps, Not getting involved in the football games. I know that's blasphemy down here. And perhaps not going to the Petunia Festival on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps slowing things down on Saturday evening. Getting into family worship with your spouse and your children. beginning to pray, asking God to open your hearts, open your eyes to His Word, asking God to anoint the preacher and the teacher, asking God to move in the song service, asking God and the collective prayers and the preparation of God's people, and then you walk in the door. And maybe you'd have less arguments on the way to church. How did I know that? And maybe perhaps you'd have less strife on the way to the house of God, and you could come in in a more Christ-like manner, and maybe it would be easier for us then to be in the presence of the Lord and truly worship God in spirit and in truth. I'm just surmising here, just suggesting, if it's the Lord's day, Every last one of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, comes into worship having spent several days consistently placing ourselves at the center of our lives. And it is this self-centeredness that is the normal and natural disposition of what Paul called the old self, or the sinful nature, or sometimes just the flesh. So if we are to see Jesus, and if our hearts are going to burn within us, if worship is going to be truly Christ-centered, it must first do the work of displacing me. It must tell me that I do not belong in the center. It must call me out for what I am, a fraud and an imposter and a sinner. And that means that worship's first word to me must be a discomforting, insulting, displacing word that leaves no blurred lines between who God is and who I am. And this is why Cranmer and the other Reformers were dead set on providing repeated moments in worship that highlighted God's glory through lofty words of praise. It is also why they insisted that we must have moments to confess our sinfulness. These kinds of words and habits displace me. They remove me from center stage. And then, really and only then, can the words of the Gospel rush in to offer the remedy of replacement, putting Christ at the center. The point that Paul and the Reformers were attempting to make is that for Christ-centered worship to have its proper heart-inflaming effects, the Gospel needs to be set against the backdrop of my own horrific sin and my own serious need. Now if that's true, then singing and praying and preaching about how awesome Jesus is and how amazing His grace is and how marvelous His cross is is simply not enough. And that's not because Jesus is not just that awesome. And it's not because His grace is not just that amazing. And it's not because the cross is not just that marvelous. It is because we are just that carnal and just that determined to remain fixed at the center. We will never have eyes to see Jesus in His magnificent glory until we've been thoroughly displaced, until we've been knocked off the throne of our self-made throne in our imaginary kingdom. That's the logic behind the prayer meeting at 10 o'clock in my office. Now the words of displacement can come in many forms. Songs that highlight the glorious, incommunicable attributes of God. Prayers that offer words of confession. Psalms of lamentation, read together or responsibly. But such words are needed in order for the replacement to happen, so that our eyes will be opened, so that we can see Jesus, so our hearts will burn within us. And I'm not saying this is easy and I'm not saying we will always be successful. But I am saying that if we don't at least understand this dynamic and pray and strive and beg God for it to happen, we will keep on not seeing Jesus and we will keep on with cold, dry hearts and we will become nice, religious people. May God help us to see the risen Christ in His glory so that our hearts may burn within us. Let's pray.