to the glory of God. Now Christianity is the most unique religion in the history of the world. Nothing's like it. No other religion or human philosophy even comes close to the profound distinctions and the radical differences and the complete uniqueness of the religion that was founded by God Himself against all the other claims made by all the other religions and human philosophies. Biblical Christianity is based on faith. It is based on you and me believing and trusting that who Jesus revealed Himself to be and what Jesus did will bring both forgiveness and righteousness to patently unworthy sinners. And since none of us were alive when Jesus walked the earth, all we have, the only way that any of us can believe is by trusting what God the Holy Spirit moved upon 40 men over a 1,500 year time frame to write down in the 66 books of the Holy Bible. And because that is true, biblical Christianity does not start with the resurrection as the prime doctrine. It also does not start with the attributes or characteristics of the one true living God. Biblical Christianity starts with the doctrine of Scripture. The sacred writings that everything that we believe and trust and know about God and Jesus and salvation and resurrection is based on can be found. Everything we believe and teach about who Jesus is and what Jesus did is found on the pages of the Bible. And that is why genuine born-again Christians believe the Bible to be the Word of God. And that is why the Christian church believes and teaches that Scripture is both the Word of God and the voice of God in the earth. Christians do not believe that a church office or a church position, whether that's pope or pastor, affords any human being with the gift of infallibility. No. Christians believe and teach that the ability to never be in error resides solely in the Scriptures. No other book, no other writing, no other manuscript is like the Bible. And Scripture describes itself this way in 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. All Scripture is inspired. The Greek word there is theopneustos. And yes, the P is spoken. The P is not silent in Greek. Theopneustos. And it means God breathed. But not just breathed as an inhaling, but breathed as an exhaling. So the Scripture was exhaled by God And therefore, it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." So four things are to be carried out by the church using God-breathed Scripture and only God-breathed Scripture. All teaching. all reproof, all correction, and all training in righteousness. We have no other document to use. We have no other manuscript to use. So the Christian church does not base any of these four things on anything other than Scripture. And that means that Christians are the people who have been blessed by God to be able to believe and trust and have faith and confidence in what the 66 books of the Holy Bible says about who Jesus is and what Jesus did. And it is that wondrous gift of faith whereby God empowers rebels to believe that brings about our confession. Because in Romans 10, 9 and 10, the Scriptures declare that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Now the way that's written means it's out loud. You confess that out loud. That you believe that Jesus is God. And you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. You will be saved. Well, why? Why is that true? Verse 10, For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness. And with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. So what you believe, if what you are believing is right, it will result in you and me becoming righteous. That's another word for obedience. We will be obedient to God. If you're believing correctly, you will be obeying correctly. And with the mouth, He confesses out loud, and that results in His salvation. Every other religion and human philosophy is based on human beings doing something to gain favor with God. They all involve very elaborate rituals and ceremonies that people must carry out to make themselves worthy to inherit eternal life. I never will forget being raised as an altar boy in the Episcopal Church. And we spent an enormous amount of time trying to understand what colors we were supposed to wear during what part of the year. And there was this big, elaborate ritual in the middle of the service where the 30-foot-tall pipe organ would play. And they never were on key, by the way. I don't know what they were. It sounded like they were practicing. And there was this big, old, loud organ playing. And that was the moment that I was supposed to take the Bible from one side of the altar to the other side of the altar. And that's supposed to mean something. And so people spend more attention to the trappings of the church and the colors of the garments and the candles and the costumes and the rituals and the ceremonies than they do the substance of the Word of the living God. The Protestant Reformation was initiated by the Reformers to fix that problem. Ah, and yet 500 years later, you can get a genuine page out of original 1611 King James Version of the Bible if you give John Hagee $2,500. We're right back where we started 500 years ago. Collecting religious trinkets. He'll be glad to get you a bottle of water, a bottle of oil from the Garden of Gethsemane and a jug of water from the River Jordan for a nice, hefty contribution. And so in reality, the only differences between Islam and Judaism, or between Buddhism and Hinduism, or even between Jehovah's Witness Mormonism, Oneness Pentecostalism, and even Roman Catholicism, are in the various details of what they teach that a person has to do or accomplish in order for him to be right with God. That's all the difference is. Whether you fly an airplane through the building shouting Alu Akbar or whether you light a candle or put the Bible on one side of the altar to the other. It's all what you need to do in order to gain favor with God. But all of them, in one form or another, teach a works-based salvation system that is entirely based on what people must do for themselves in order to be in right standing with God. But biblical Christianity alone teaches that human beings cannot do anything to earn favor with God. And therefore, Christianity is not about what we do for God. It is about what God has done for us in, by, and through the Lord Jesus Christ and in His finished work. Hallelujah. Now even though the modern church has sadly moved away from the objective, propositional, absolute, and eternal truth of Scripture over the last several years, and has become much more sensual and mystical and esoteric, the basis of Christianity has never changed. And that is because Scripture has never changed. And it is what God has revealed to us infallibly in the 66 books of sacred writ that defines what Christianity is, what the church is, who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and what salvation is. So you're not saved because you say you're saved. You're saved because you've done what the Scripture tells you to do to be saved. You have believed and trusted and confessed. who God is, who man is, how to organize and run the church, and how this great and glorious and infinitely righteous God saves unworthy rebels are all revealed to us in the pages of the Holy Bible. And so Christianity has already been defined. It has already been established. It has already been set up. And it's never going to be redefined or reestablished by mortal men. So we believe what God has infallibly revealed in Scripture. And that means that fallen sinners are saved, they are forgiven and made righteous by believing and trusting and having faith in what God has revealed about who Jesus is and what Jesus did in Scripture. But how do we do that? How does a person come to believe what the Bible says about Jesus so they can be saved? What has to happen for a human being to believe in and believe on Jesus Christ? Is believing simply a function of our own human will that I can just turn on or off? Is trusting what God has revealed in Scripture about Jesus merely a choice or a decision as so many in the modern church teach? May I simply force myself to believe that what the Bible says about who Jesus is and what Jesus did is true by the power of my own intellect and willpower? Now you'd think that after a lot of time here on the earth that people wouldn't be so superstitious and then you go into a skyscraper and realize that none of them have a 13th floor. And when you watch professional football players, they all have rituals they go through to get ready for the game. Which sock they put on first, the t-shirt they put on before they put on the other shirt, before they put on their shoulder pads, before they put on their jersey. And it has to be that way or they're going to lose. And people do that way in church. They're trying to psych themselves up to believe. They think if they close their eyes and really squint real hard that they can force themselves to believe what the Bible says about Jesus. Do all people already have the capacity to believe that what the Bible says about Jesus and salvation is true? Is faith in Jesus something that is inherent in the human vessel? Do I just kind of release the faith that I already have and that's how I believe? Is faith in who Jesus is the result of watching a documentary or a movie about Jesus? is trusting that what the Scriptures reveal about Jesus, about what He did, the result of me learning about all the archaeological discoveries over the last 2,000 years. How can I come to believe and trust and have faith in what the Scripture says about who Jesus is and what Jesus did? The answer lies in verse 45 of our text this morning, where it says, Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Now, keep in mind that Jesus did this after He miraculously appeared to them. In verses 36 and 37, Luke writes, while they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, Peace be unto you. But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. Now the fact that Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures after He miraculously appeared to them tells us some very important facts. such as supernatural manifestations like miracles and signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Spirit, do not bring about belief. They don't produce belief in anybody. Believing is connected to understanding the Scriptures. And the opening of our minds to the Scriptures is a sovereign work of God. without which we will not believe. Now Jesus was seen at least five different times the very same day that He rose from the dead on that first Lord's Day. Number one, by Mary Magdalene alone in the garden according to John 20 verse 14. By the women as they were going to tell the disciples according to Matthew 28 verse 9. By Peter alone that is referenced in Luke 24, 34 that we discussed last week, by the two disciples going to Emmaus, according to Luke 24, verse 15, and here by these men. So while at least nine of the remaining disciples were discussing the resurrection with the two men who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus, Jesus just suddenly appeared in their midst. Now, I was talking to Brother Verne about this this morning. I understand, I guess I kind of understand, Jesus Himself just appearing and disappearing. Okay, but remember, either Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus or somebody gave Jesus the garments that He was wearing. So the robe that he wore or whatever you want to call it that he had on was borrowed. And yet the garments along with Jesus were appearing and disappearing too. Wow. Now say the number nine because Judas had already killed himself by this time and it is very possible that neither Peter nor Thomas were present at this miraculous appearing that Brother Andy read in that passage that Brother Andy just read. Now, there's no doubt that these men were trying to put all the pieces together. There were just too many eyewitnesses to ignore. So whatever they were discussing and however they were understanding all that had happened was suddenly put on hold as Jesus Himself appeared in their midst. And I always try to put myself in the shoes of people that I read about in the Bible. What would I be talking about? How would I be acting at this moment? Obviously, something amazing has just happened. Now, you've got to ask some questions. Why were they in the room together? Well, their leader had just been murdered. Now, if they could murder the leader who could perform miracles and forgive sin, then maybe they're going to come after them. So there's a very high degree of fear in these men. They don't know if they're fixing to get caught by the Roman soldiers. They don't know if they're fixing to get thrown in jail. Their Lord is not in the tomb. Did He really rise from the dead? Is this really happening? And what am I supposed to do with this? What's the next step? How are we supposed to think about this? Remember, they couldn't read Galatians. They couldn't open the Bible and read 2 Peter to find out what to do about this. There wasn't a Galatians yet. Or a 2 Peter. And as they beheld the risen Lord, Jesus spoke to them and said, Peace be to you. Again, every one of these men had sinned. None of them believed. None of them believed that Jesus was going to rise from the dead. And as far as I know, only John and Peter were actually at least in some vicinity of Jesus while they were beating Him and while they were killing Him. Where's the rest of them? Where's Nathanael? Where's Thomas? Where's everybody else? And so they're all guilty. They all feel like they've betrayed the Lord because they have betrayed the Lord. That's why people feel bad. I'm going to feel guilty. I go to your church, Brother Blair, and I feel guilty. Praise the Lord. The Holy Spirit's working. Hallelujah. The answer to that, well, I just need to quit coming. No, the answer is repent. Amen. So Jesus says, I'm not here to judge you. I'm not going to condemn you. I'm not going to destroy you. Peace be to you. But Dr. Luke says their response was not one of faith and trust. He says they were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a spirit. Like they saw spirits all the time? Now the Greek word used over in Matthew 14.26 for spirit is phantasma, which literally means a specter or an apparition, and not the word for the Spirit of God. But Luke uses the word pneuma here, which correctly signifies a true spirit. And from this we know that at this point, these men thought that Jesus had appeared to them, but that it was Jesus' spirit and not Jesus physically. And by that we know that these men did not understand the resurrection properly. They still didn't put together that what Jesus and the Old Testament Scriptures had taught about the resurrection was a uniting of an immortal soul with a physical body. So they were standing there looking at what they thought was a manifestation of Jesus' soul or spirit. And then as Jesus spoke, they became very confused because they didn't know that a resurrected spirit could communicate with people. So look at how Jesus expanded their understanding of what a genuine resurrection was. Look at verses 38-43 with me again. And He said to them, Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Have you ever noticed that when God asks a question, He's not interested in an answer? When he said, Adam, where are you? He wasn't asking Adam to say, I'm over here hiding. He knew where he was. God knows. He's omniscient. So this is a rhetorical question. In other words, why are you not believing? Why are you not trusting? Why are you doubting? Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your heart? See my hands and my feet that it is I Myself. Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. That's significant. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, have you anything here to eat? They're all standing there with their mouth hung open. They don't know what to say. They don't know what to do. And he's asking for something to eat. I don't know who got the fish. Somebody grabbed the fish off the table and they gave him a piece of a broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them. And they're standing there. Now there's much to think about what Jesus is saying here. For example, He makes the connection in verse 38 to how we doubt. Have you ever wondered how you doubt? Not why, but how? Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Human beings are very fragile creatures. And we doubt when faced with trouble. You notice that? When things don't go as planned, when circumstances suddenly change, when what we think is correct proves not to be correct, first thing we do is we doubt. We doubt ourselves, we doubt God, we doubt truth, we doubt Scripture, we doubt, we doubt, we doubt, we doubt. Huh? Our first response normally is not, I'm going to believe God. I'm going to ignore what I'm looking at. I'm going to ignore the way things are. And I'm going to trust God. That's usually not the first response we have. But it should be. Huh? Now the word doubt comes from a Greek word that means inward reasoning and a questioning about what is true. And the word trouble means to take away the calmness of mind, to disturb and make restless, to trouble, to make anxious and to stir up in distress. So when God either sovereignly causes or allows circumstances or situations to come to us that take away the calmness of our minds, that disturbs us, or that makes us restless or anxious, or that stirs us up and distresses us, we doubt. We begin to reason within ourselves and we begin to question what is really true. And this is what the disciples were doing here. At this point, if Jesus doesn't do or say something, these men would go into despair. Nothing like this has ever happened before and they have no reference point. They have no words, no ideas of what to do or say next. The vague references to a resurrection in the Old Testament are simply not enough to guide them through this. So in His mercy, Jesus personally intervenes on their behalf, and He says to them, See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. Now, Peter would have touched Him. I'd have touched Him. Most people wouldn't. He said, see my hands and my feet. Most people would do this. I ain't going to touch that. Not me. Now, Peter said, yeah, I'll touch it. That's this nature. He's got a foot shaped mouth. Huh? He's constantly getting in trouble, right? That's me. And he's constantly running ahead of everybody. He answers the question. Nobody asks. He asks the question. Nobody asks, right? And he always in trouble. Jesus called him Satan. Wow. And when he did. But Peter wasn't here. And so nobody actually acted on what he said. See my hands touch me. See for a spirit does not have flesh and bones. Nobody did it. And when he had said this he showed them his hands and his feet as enough. Jesus gives these men indisputable proof that it is Him by pointing to the fact that apparitions do not have physical flesh and bones. And the fact that He shows them His hands and feet indicate to us that they still bore the wounds of the crucifixion. That's the significance of showing them His hands and His feet. So by this, it's not that they were still dripping blood, but there was some way that it wasn't healed over either. So there was something. So by this, Jesus was teaching them again that a true resurrection involved a physical body. These men saw that He had the shape and features and the exact resemblance of their Master. And their conclusion? It must be His ghost. It must be a vision. It must be a spirit. No, Jesus said, see My hands and My feet that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. I have hands and feet and therefore I have a true body. I can move these hands and feet and therefore I have a living body. And you can see the marks of the nails in my hands and feet and therefore it is my own body, the very same body that you saw crucified. It is not a borrowed body. And by doing and saying these things, Jesus lays down this principle that a spirit does not have flesh and bones. A spirit is not compounded with tangible matter, nor is it shaped into various members that consist of different parts like our bodies are. Now notice carefully that Jesus does not tell us what a spirit is, but He tells us what a spirit is not. But He is bringing these men to one place, one conclusion. Believe that I am Jesus. who was crucified and now am alive again. He did all this for one reason, for them to believe. John said that everything that he wrote was so that his children would believe. So everything that Jesus is doing here and everything He is saying is to one single end, that these men would believe, that these men would trust and not doubt, that whatever troubling was going on in their minds right now would cease. So these men would know the truth and based on that, they would then go out into the world and proclaim the truth so that all of God's elect would believe. Listen to the way that Jesus prayed about this over in John 17. But now I am come to you. He's praying to His Father. And these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your Word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. Huh? Jesus does not pray for you to be absolved of pain and suffering and trouble and agony and persecution and hardship. But He prays that you will be kept in those things. Huh? God did not take Daniel out of the lion's den. He kept him while he was in it. He did not take Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of the fiery furnace. He kept them while they were in it. He will keep you in your fire, in your trouble, in your suffering. He will keep you. Praise the Lord. He prayed to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world for their sakes. I sanctify myself. Jesus is the only one who can talk like this. that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask, I do not pray on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. But this was just too much for these men to bear. So Luke writes this in verse 41, they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement. So the enemy of faith right now is joy and amazement. Right? Again, belief and trust and faith in God and in Jesus and in Scripture is much more than a human decision or a mere choice or an act of the human will. Faith is a gift from God. The ability for anyone to believe and to trust and to have faith in God and in what God has said and in who Jesus is and what Jesus did involves a sovereign act of God. Human beings simply cannot rub the two sticks of our own intellect and human willpower together to produce faith. Look at what the Apostle Paul taught about faith from Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. I was talking to the early morning class, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, and I said it must be awful important to God for men not to boast. Because there's an awful lot about it in the Bible, isn't there? God does not want you to boast about anything but Him. Right? So it's not about how hard you prayed, or how tender your heart was, or how you cried, or how much you wanted God, or how much you sought after God. It is about what God did for you as to why you were saved. Now here the apostle teaches that salvation is by the grace of God. That means the origination. And it is through faith. That's the catalyst by which it flows to us. And then he ends this by saying, salvation is not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. If it was a result of works, then you could take credit for what you did. and you would boast. So it's not about what you did. It's not walking an aisle or raising your hand or making a decision or any of these things. That's all just made-up doctrine. It's not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus didn't have an altar call. Paul didn't teach about an altar call. John didn't teach about an altar call. I want people to be saved, but I want them to be saved biblically. And that's just made-up stuff. So don't you dare point your finger at a Roman Catholic and say they make stuff up. Because the modern church makes stuff up too. It's not okay to make stuff up, is it? So salvation is not a result of works so that no one may boast. Look closely at the last part of verse 8. And that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Now, we know that salvation is certainly not of ourselves, and we also know that salvation is surely the gift of God. But in context, that's not what the Apostle is teaching here. Paul is expanding on the faith that salvation is through by telling his readers that the faith that it takes to be saved is two things. It is not of yourself, and it is the gift of God. So, Paul is teaching here that the faith that it takes for lost sinners to be saved does not originate from inside the human being. And that means that saving faith, the kind of faith it takes to believe who Jesus is and what Jesus did so that we may be forgiven and made righteous, is not inherent in human beings. This kind of faith is not a matter of working it up by playing music real fast or real long. Those of you that's not in the Pentecostal church don't know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. It isn't a product of human decision or choice. Now the Baptists know what I'm talking about. Paul was moved along by God the Holy Spirit to say that saving faith is not of yourself. It is external to human beings. It doesn't come from within you. And then Paul goes on to say that saving faith is a gift of God. Hallelujah! And that means that it is given based on the very same thing that everything else that God gives to us is based on His own sovereign prerogative. Hallelujah. God loved me for no other reason than He loved me. And God chose me because He wanted to. That's it. Hallelujah. He's the one that's free, not us. We cannot do anything to earn this faith. We cannot ever deserve it. And God is never under any circumstances obligated to give it. Saving faith is given as a free gift by a kind and loving God to undeserving rebels based on one single criteria because God chose to give it to them. Period. And that means that the claims of great mountain-moving faith by many in the modern church are nothing more than human boasting and are simply a different way that fallen rebels go about to rob God of the glory that He alone is entitled to have. For sinful humans to brag about how much faith they have does not honor God, dear friends, unless you think you're the one who creates faith. These men were looking at the resurrected Christ who was standing right there with the nail prints in His hands and feet and was talking to them. And Luke tells us that it was two things that prevented them from believing. Two very human attributes that worked together to hinder faith. Their joy and their amazement. Now we can understand their dilemma perfectly because we also doubt in our own joy and amazement. And so some of the troubling that goes on in the human mind is not always what we would consider to be bad. Here, human joy, it may be really seeing the Lord again and absolute amazement at the miracle of the resurrection was creating doubt in their minds. It wasn't creating faith, it was creating doubt. It was causing them to disbelieve, to question what is true. And this illustrates again the weakness of miracles and signs and wonders in either creating faith or in sustaining genuine faith. As powerful as what they were all looking at with their own eyes was, the net result of everything that has happened to them so far was this, they still could not believe it. So if these men are going to be the witnesses to the world of all that Jesus is and does, Jesus Himself is going to have to do yet more. More than being raised from the dead. More than appearing to them. More than showing them His hands and feet. More than speaking to them. More than eating fish. He's got to do something else. Or they're not going to believe. Because so far He's done all that, and the net result is they still could not believe it. Right? So look what He did. He said to them, have you anything here to eat? They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and He took and ate it before them. Once again, Jesus is proving to these men that it was really Him and not a vision, not a spirit, not an apparition by literally eating food right before them. And there are lots of things we could say about this. Two or three sermons worth. But evidently this one thing stood out in the minds of the Apostle Peter. The fact that He ate right in front of them was something meaningful to Peter. Because over in the book of Acts 10, verses 39-41, the Apostle Peter said this, We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He would become visible not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead." Wow! It was at this time that Jesus did the one thing that these men needed in order to believe. Verse 44 says, Now he said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. There we go. Here we see a direct correlation between faith and the Scriptures. We see here that Jesus sovereignly opened their minds to the Scriptures. And this tells us two things. That at this point, their minds were still closed. Because He had to open it. And then faith comes by understanding Scripture. If Jesus opened their minds here in verse 45, that means that from verses 36-43, their minds were closed. Now this is amazing that human beings could see and talk to a resurrected Savior and still be closed-minded. They could still doubt. They could still not believe or trust. And this tells you that the most important factor in believing is not what your eyes see. Huh! People make statements all the time like, I know what I saw! Or, I saw that with my own eyes. And they say those things as though those things were the basis of what they believe and why they believe something. I saw it with my own eyes. And I don't know if you've ever been in a room with a guy that can deal cards, but I can promise you what you see is not what you see. And a man that knows how to do it good can do it with one hand and you're sitting there looking at him and he's taking the card and he's dealing it just like that and he's not dealing off the top, he's dealing off the bottom. And you can't see it. He can do things like this. It's called sleight of hand because the hand is quicker than the eye. That's how these carnival acts make money off of silly people on the side of the street. Because they'll do the balls around. And because your eye doesn't know what it looks at. And even when you see something, you're not sure how to interpret it. You're not sure what it means. Huh? We really don't know what we see. Many times we have no idea how to comprehend or how to interpret or even what to think about what our eyes see or what our ears hear or what we touch with our hands. What God says and what God does and who God is is far above us. God is bigger than we are, wiser than we are, so much better than we are. 600 years before Jesus was born, the prophet said this in Isaiah 55, verses 8 and 9, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So God and the ways of God are beyond our understanding. And that means that if any of us are ever going to understand God rightly, God must reveal Himself to us. He must open our minds to the Scriptures. God must come to us precisely because we cannot go to God. God must speak to us in ways that fallen humans can understand. R.C. Sproul calls it that God speaks to us in baby talk. John Calvin said, "...for who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lifts with us as nurses are wont to do with little children? Such modes of expression therefore do not so much express what kind of a being God is as to accommodate the knowledge of Him to our feebleness. In doing so, He must, of course, stoop far below His proper height." So in His mercy, God revealed Himself to mankind most fully in words. And that means that we cannot see the best or the highest or the clearest manifestation of God with our eyes. Either in the wonder of creation or through astounding miracles or in amazing signs and wonders. We see God the best in a book. His book. God used language to show us Himself. He uses words and nouns and pronouns and adjectives and adverbs and prepositional phrases that are inerrant and inspired to reveal His majestic glory. We see God in word pictures in the Bible. We hear God speak in a book. And because God revealed Himself to us in a book, it is in knowing and understanding that book that produces faith, that creates trust, that originates belief. The Apostle Paul wrote this in Romans 10, verse 17. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. Now the word comes here means origination or source. And the word hearing literally means hearing with the physical ear. For the origination of saving faith, the source of believing in people, is hearing the Word of Christ preached and taught rightly and fully. Paul called it the foolishness of the Word preached. Now God could have given faith any way He wanted to, but in His wisdom and power, God has chosen the full and correct preaching and teaching of the Word of Christ as the means or the way or the method by which people who are dead in their trespasses and sins may believe. For God uses the full and correct preaching and teaching of the Word of Christ, the heralding of the biblical Gospel, the proclamation about the Christ to originate or cause saving faith in those chosen for salvation. And so it was when Jesus sovereignly opened their minds to the Scriptures that these men who were troubled and doubting began to believe. The ability for these men to no longer doubt, the power of these men to believe, the source of their steadfastness and their unwavering commitment to go into the world with the Gospel, was in Jesus opening their minds to the Scriptures. And it was at this point that Jesus gives to these men the one single message they were to preach. He said to them, Thus it is written that Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name, by His reputation, by Him alone, to His glory, to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem, you are witnesses of these things. Now this is Luke's version of the Great Commission. This is the biblical Gospel in a nutshell. This is the one single message that the church is authorized to preach to every human being on earth. So whatever else we may do as a church, we must do this. We must herald this message. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, tending to the poor, all fine and good. And there are things about which we need to be about. But not at the expense of preaching and teaching the biblical gospel. I do not simply give a cup of water to him who is thirsty. I give a cup of water in the name of the Lord. So the kind acts that we do in our community by building handicap ramps and by taking people clothes and by paying their light bill and by buying their medicine is to an end. That they may repent and that they may trust in Jesus and be saved and not simply be better prepared to go to hell. The message is our primary responsibility and that is our primary command. And that is what we will primarily be held accountable by God to. But finally, while it is true that we cannot go to God and that God must come to us, while it is true that we cannot create or originate faith, and while it is true that we cannot twist God's arm to compel Him to act against His will, it is also true that we must preach this one message in His power. We must do God's will, yes, but we must do God's will in God's way. And so here at the end of this passage, Jesus gives these men one final command. Behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you. But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. A wonderful illustration of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a terrible analogy for you to think being filled with the Spirit is like a glass that is filling up with water. That is a horrible example. That is not what it means. Being filled with the Spirit means to be draped over, to be empowered, to be enabled, to be saturated. Not just to be filled as you fill up a glass. And so it's an ongoing reality. You don't get filled one time. The men who were filled in the 2nd chapter of Acts were filled in the 4th chapter as well. It's an ongoing reality. Are you being controlled by God the Holy Spirit? Are you hungering and thirsting after righteousness? Are you pursuing holiness on purpose? Are you going through the city at night seeking Him whom your soul loves? Are you panting after God as a deer pants after the water brooks? That is what it means to be clothed upon by power from on high. This is the power of the Holy Spirit to anoint us and empower us and enable us to preach and teach the truth and then to obey what we teach. It is also the power to carry out God's will and to proclaim God's Word in total submission to Jesus Christ. See, you can go preach God's Word and then take credit for it and blow the whole thing. You can obey God in the strength of your own prayer life and be dishonoring to God. So you must be in total submission to Jesus Christ as you proclaim the Word of God. You must be fully dependent upon Him as you go and preach God's Word. To preach the truth by trusting in what we can do for ourselves or by depending on what our organizations that we have built can do dishonors Jesus Christ and fights against the primary goal of God in salvation, and that is that God alone will be glorified. Dear friends, if you don't get anything else, get this. The primary goal of God in everything that He does from creating a universe to building a mountain to creating an ocean to saving a sinful soul is not simply that that act is done. but that He is glorified. So the primary goal of God in salvation is not simply that lost people are saved or that the nations of the world repent or that the Christian church grows in numbers and influence in the earth. Those things in and of themselves will become a reproach to God unless and until the end of all those things is that Jesus Christ alone is magnified and worshiped and adored and treasured. So the primary goal of God in everything that He does in the earth, including salvation, is that He alone be known and adored and worshiped. So the goal of God in salvation is worship. That lost rebels will worship the one true living God. And you do not worship God by living in ongoing, unrepentant rebellion to Him. That's not worship. You can't continue on in doing things that God said don't do and say you're worshiping God. The goal of salvation, dear friends, is worship. And so evangelism exists, the going forth to preach the Gospel so that people will say that's evangelism. Evangelism exists because worship doesn't. We go forth into the world to preach the Gospel so that people will be saved so that they will worship God. So God's love to unworthy sinners exists so they will be so radically transformed by what God alone does for them that they will love God. Yeah, Jesus saved me because He loved me. Sure, absolutely. Just don't stop. Keep going. Jesus saved me because He loved me, so by saving me, I will love Him. So the goal of God in salvation is God. Hallelujah! Not you. Did you know God's not diminished if you don't praise Him? Did you know? He's fine if you don't bother to show up. He's fine. It's to your advantage to worship God. It's to my advantage to obey God. God's fine without me or anybody else. So salvation is Him changing me so much by what He alone does for me that obeying Him brings me joy! Hallelujah! God loves wicked rebels so that they will find the fullness of joy and the highest degree of satisfaction in rejecting the shiny trinkets of this life and treasuring Jesus Christ. Remember, it doesn't take God the Holy Spirit to empower people to build great cathedrals. It doesn't take the anointing of the Holy Spirit to become powerful and influential in the earth. It doesn't take being clothed with power from on high to impact large crowds of people with a message that makes much of them and tickles their ears. Any human-initiated religion can do that. Any man-made religious organization can do that. And all through history, man-made religious organizations have done that. But it takes the power of the Holy Spirit to love Jesus. and to live to His glory and to decrease in your own importance. It takes the anointing of the Holy Spirit for you and me to depend on God and not what we can do for ourselves. It takes an external power that we do not have within ourselves to preach and teach the biblical Gospel faithfully day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, all the while believing and hoping and trusting and not doubting. It takes the anointing of the Holy Spirit for us to delight in God. It takes being clothed with power from on high to preach to God's glory so that sinners can hear and believe and have faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ unto both forgiveness and righteousness so that God alone will be seen and magnified and valued above everything that has been made. Now according to the Apostle John, Thomas was not present on that Sunday evening when Jesus appeared to the other disciples. And regardless of what the other men told him, Thomas categorically refused to believe that Jesus had risen until he saw Jesus with his own eyes. A declaration that has earned him the unflattering title of Doubting Thomas. And I'm so glad I wasn't alive then because you'd be reading Doubting Blair. Now, I don't believe for a second that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle John to include this account in order to merely embarrass Thomas, but rather, it's recorded because God has important things to teach me and you about our own doubts and what kind of seeing really brings us joy. But as things would go by the end of that first day of the resurrection, Thomas was in real bad shape. The only other member of the Twelve beside Thomas who had not seen the risen Christ was Judas Iscariot. As he listened to his friends excitingly describe their encounter with Jesus, Thomas was not excited at all. He was skeptical and frustrated. And he even blurted out in John 20, 25, unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. So why did Thomas respond this way to people that he knew so well and trusted? The words that he spoke tell us of the horror he had actually seen. The Gospel accounts of Jesus' death are very sparse on details and I think on purpose. So it's very hard for us to feel what Thomas felt as he actually watched his Master die. I tried to capture that in a couple of sermons. It was very hard to even write it. I wept most of the week just writing it down. In fact, Thomas' declaration of unbelief, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, is really the only time nails are mentioned in the Gospels as part of Jesus' crucifixion. Most of what we know about crucifixion comes from other sources beside the Bible. The slaughter of Jesus outside of Jerusalem had been so gruesome that it was all but humanly impossible for Thomas to imagine a resurrection. True, Thomas had seen Lazarus' resurrection, but Lazarus had died of an illness and Jesus had been there to raise him. This time it was Jesus who had been torn to pieces and it was Jesus who had died. How does a mutilated man raise himself? And let's not assume too quickly that we would have responded any differently than the doubter had we seen what Thomas had seen. Now while Thomas' doubts may have been humanly understandable, they were not commendable at all. In fact, they were sinful, as is all unbelief. The apostle wrote this in Romans 14, 23, whatever is not from faith is sin. Whatever is done without full hope and trust in Jesus Christ as both Lord and Savior is sin. Whatever is done to rob any amount of glory from God and take it for ourselves is sin. Whatever is done without being in full submission to God's will is sin. Whatever is done without being fully dependent on Jesus for both provision and sustenance is sin. And that is true whether we're talking about eating food or preaching the Gospel or praying to seek lost souls. And notice that Jesus was not in a hurry to relieve Thomas' doubts. He let Thomas stew in his own unbelieving words uncomfortably alone in the midst of a joyful fellowship of believers for eight awkward days. Finally, a full week after that first Sunday, Jesus appeared when Thomas was present and said in John 20-27, reach here with your finger and see My hands and reach here your hand and put it into My side and do not be unbelieving, but believing. And that's all it took. Jesus doing what Thomas needed. And Thomas' repentance was beautiful. He said, My Lord and My God. Then Jesus said something very profound that was not only meant for Thomas, but was meant for me in John 20, 29. Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believe. Thomas had been chosen by Jesus to be a unique, authoritative witness of his resurrection. And that's why Thomas was granted the gift of seeing Jesus with his physical eyes. But Jesus' rebuke is crystal clear. There were others who had not seen Jesus, but still believed in the resurrection. And their believing was more blessed than Thomas' seeing. Why? Because those saints relied on their eyes of faith more than their eyes and their heads. And Jesus said that faith-seeing in this age results in more joy than eye-seeing. And this is why Peter, Thomas' fellow eyewitness, later wrote in 1 Peter 1.8.9, And although you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. And that means that faith, as the Bible describes it, is not blind. No such thing as blind faith. Unbelief is what is blind. Faith sees a reality beyond what eyes can see, a reality that God reveals to us from Scripture which is more important, in fact, more real than what we can see with our physical eyes. And God mercifully reveals this reality to us through His living and active Word that is a light unto our path. Since the ascension, Jesus Christ is seen only through the inerrant testimony of His prophets and apostles recorded in the Scriptures. And this is the blessed kind of seeing that enables us to walk by faith and not by sight. Glorious, inexpressible joy comes not by seeing Jesus now, but by believing in Him now. And Jesus Himself said that those who believe in Jesus in this age are more blessed than those who have actually seen Him. That is true because believing is true seeing. It is faith sight, not eyesight. And faith sight results in eternal life. Jesus came to open the eyes of faith. Jesus said everything He said and did everything He did so that we would believe. Because as we have already seen several times, physical eyesight was never a guarantee that people really saw Jesus anyway. Judas Iscariot was the greatest witness to that tragic truth. So like He did for the other ten, Jesus forgave Thomas of his faith failure and mercifully restored him. But because of Thomas' unbelief, Jesus made him a gracious example for me of the wrong kind of seeing. So if you find that your seeing of Jesus is impaired, Thomas teaches you not to declare, unless I see, I will not believe. But rather, I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. Let's pray.