Last week we looked at the lessons learned on the road to
Emmaus by two of Jesus’ disciples.
And the lessons that these two men learned was basically a completion of
their theology. They had an
incomplete theology concerning the Messiah, and so Jesus helped them to see how
the Old Testament scriptures spoke of His suffering. That was what they had not understood. They thought that Christ’s death
eliminated Him from being the Messiah.
Jesus showed them from scripture how His suffering and death were in fact
predicted and consequently proved that He was the Messiah.
And then if you remember when He broke bread with them their
eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and immediately He vanished from
their sight. The point I made was
that now that they saw Him in scripture they did not need to see Him in the
flesh. From this point on the gospel
of Jesus Christ would be based on faith in the Christ they could not see, but
who is revealed in scripture. Now today we are picking up where that story left
off.
So our text tells us that immediately these two men got up
from the table and headed back to Jerusalem, all seven miles by foot, in order
to share with the apostles that they had just seen Jesus. But when they arrived, the apostles
spoke to them of Jesus appearing to Simon Peter. Now to be frank with you, the way the story reads does not
lend itself to that interpretation.
The first impression when you read vs. 33 and 34 would seem to indicate
it was the disciples from Emmaus that make the announcement in vs. 34. But Greek scholars tell us that the
accusative form of the verb indicates that the ones speaking here are the
apostles and not the two from Emmaus.
So the best way to understand this verse is to realize that as the
disciples from Emmaus enter the room, the apostles great them excitedly with
the news that Jesus had indeed risen and appeared to Peter.
Now there is no real record of this event. But the apostle Paul writing later does
confirm that Jesus appeared to Peter at this time. In 1Cor. 15:4-5 Paul says, “He
was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures, and that He appeared
to Cephas, then to the twelve.”
Cephas of course being Simon Peter. So though Luke doesn’t fill us in on
all the details here, he is giving us a condensed version of these events, the
best interpretation is that at some point after His resurrection, before this
event, Jesus sought out Peter and revealed Himself to him. And that is very significant because as
we know Peter was devastated after his denial of Christ the night before the
crucifixion. And so it is
encouraging not only for us to know this, but obviously encouraging for Peter
as well that after His resurrection Jesus seeks out Peter for a private time of
reconciliation.
But the main thrust of Luke’s account here has to do with
the rest of the apostles. So as
the disciples from Emmaus were recounting what happened with them, Jesus
suddenly appears in their midst and says “Peace be to you.” Now the next verse says that the
apostles were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a
ghost. I guess that would not be
an unusual response of most people if someone whom we knew was dead suddenly
appeared in the middle of the room without opening a door. Sounds reasonable to me.
But Jesus says, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts
arise in your hearts? 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. While they still could not believe it
because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, “Have you anything here to
eat?” They gave Him a piece of a
broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them.
Now what are we to make from all of that? Well, one obvious point that is made
clear here is that in spite of being able to walk through walls and appear in
various places at various times seemingly at will, Jesus has physically risen
from the dead. That is an
important theological point. We
don’t hear much discussion about that today, but in previous generations,
especially in the first century or two after Christ’s resurrection, there was a
lot of false doctrine which put forth the idea that Jesus was only a
Spirit. And that His resurrection
wasn’t a bodily resurrection but a spiritual one.
The main point though to be taken from this is that the
physical, literal resurrection of
Jesus is fundamental to the gospel. Rom. 10:9 says “that if you confess with
your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from
the dead, you will be saved.” Why
is the physical resurrection of Christ essential to salvation? Because it proves that Christ’s death
was efficacious. It proved that
God was satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice. It matters that His body came out of
that grave because how else would we know that God was satisfied with His
offering? We couldn’t see His Spirit.
If it was just a spiritual resurrection then we would not have known for
sure that God had in fact raised Him, that God had in fact been satisfied with
His sacrifice. And without that
assurance, we could not be sure that we are saved from our sins. So the verification of Christ’s
literal, physical resurrection is essential for the gospel. As Paul said in 1Cor. 15:14, “and if
Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is
vain.”
So the fact of
the gospel must be that it is literal, physical and historical. Paul goes on to say that Jesus appeared
to 500 people at one time after His resurrection. That makes it historical. Five hundred witnesses makes it provable in a court of
law. Luke goes on to say in Acts
chapter 1 that Jesus appeared numerous times to various people over the space
of 40 days. So the point is that
the resurrection of Jesus was historical, literal and physical which is
essential to the gospel. There is
no doubt that Jesus was literally a historical figure that walked the earth
2000 years ago. And when you add
to that the fact that He was raised from the dead then that establishes that He
was in fact God in the flesh. That
is the basis for our gospel.
Then starting
in vs. 44 we read that Jesus began to do for the apostles what He had
earlier done for the disciples from Emmaus. And that is, He opened their mind to understand the
scriptures. Folks, this is so
important. This is the reason that
so many are deceived by false doctrines today. They haven’t had their minds opened to understand the
scriptures. False doctrines always
claim to be founded on scripture.
But it’s possible to know scripture and yet not understand
scripture. And so they build a
doctrine or a theology based on a partial understanding of the gospel. This is exactly what had happened with
the disciples.
So Jesus is using this opportunity to correct that here with
the apostles. First as I mentioned
earlier, He showed them the error of their theology that did not allow for a
suffering Savior, that did not allow for the crucifixion of the Messiah. And to do that He showed them the
scriptures. And so He is doing the
same thing here with the eleven.
He starts with the Law and then moves to the Psalms and then on through
the prophets, teaching them how all these OT scriptures spoke of Him.
So Jesus is reiterating for the benefit of the apostles what
we discovered last week, that the scriptures are fundamental to the
gospel. The scriptures reveal God. That sounds like such a superfluous
statement. And yet it had to be understood
then and it desperately needs to be understood today. Extra biblical words of knowledge or dreams or visions or
experiences cannot be relied upon.
But the word of the Lord endures forever. It is the foundation of the gospel. Paul writes in Eph. 2:20
that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets,
that means the writings of the apostles and the prophets, the holy scriptures.
These are the
scriptures which Paul told Timothy in 2Tim. 3:15 “that from childhood you have
known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” These scriptures that Paul refers to are the Old Testament
scriptures. Jesus opens the mind
of the apostles to understand the Old Testament scriptures. These are the scriptures that give you
the wisdom that leads to salvation.
Listen folks, the gospel starts in Genesis, not
Matthew. The wisdom that leads to
salvation comes from understanding how God is revealed in all of scripture, how
His plan for salvation was enacted before creation. If you do not understand the God which destroyed the world
in the flood, and the God of the fire and smoke of Mt. Sinai, then you cannot
understand the God of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Heb 13:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and
today and forever.” He is unchanging, He is the everlasting God.
So the second point then is that the gospel is
Biblical. It is founded on the
scriptures and dependent understanding the full scope of the scriptures and how
it all works together. It is not
something completely new. It is
not an interruption. But the
gospel is a continuous thread that runs through all of the Bible which has to
be understood as a whole.
Next in vs. 46 Jesus gives them a concise synopsis of the
gospel. Luke 24:46-47 “and He said
to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the 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 to all the
nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’” Incorporated in that simple statement is
the plan, the purpose and the presentation of the gospel. The plan of God was
the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of Christ which
accomplishes our reconciliation with God, and then our mission to proclaim the
gospel to the world. That is the
gospel in a nutshell.
And the third major characteristic of the gospel as
presented in this synopsis by Jesus is that the gospel is confessional. Now what do I mean by that? Well, I already showed in Rom. 10:9 the confessional nature of
salvation. It reads “that if you
confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God
raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
But to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord is much more
than simply accepting the historical reality of Jesus. The Bible says that the devils believe
and tremble. Believing in the
literal, historical reality of Jesus but not accepting Him as Lord and Savior
only serves to condemn you, not save you.
To confess Jesus as Lord is really understood more clearly
in this statement here in Luke by Jesus. His statement affirms that Jesus is
the Christ, that is the Messiah, which means that He is the Son of God, that He
was raised from the dead, which we just finished showing meant that God was
satisfied by His sacrifice, that He was in fact God in the flesh, and that
repentance for sins would be proclaimed or preached.
Now that is where I would like to camp out for a
moment. Because I’m afraid that
repentance is the aspect of salvation that is not being preached today. And yet I believe it is the key to
salvation because it is the key to transformation. It is the key to conversion. Without it, there may be a head knowledge, but no change, no
transformation, no conversion from death to life, from captivity to
freedom.
Repentance is the act that turns the heart from self
sufficiency to salvation. It is necessary to be saved, for one to turn from
sin’s presence, sin’s power, sin’s dominance, and even sin’s consequence to
that of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. It’s a 180 degree turn in the
opposite direction. Jesus said in Matt. 5 that salvation involved mourning for
sin. That means having a desire to
leave sin behind and pursue righteousness. This is true repentance. It’s not
simply feeling bad about your circumstances, or feeling bad about your
condition, it is not even feeling bad about the consequences that came from
your sins, it is feeling bad about the reality of sin. It’s understanding that
sin is an affront to a holy God.
The other day the President of the United States gave the
annual State of the Union address.
I did not watch it. I do
not have to watch it to know that the state of our Union is deplorable. But I am much more concerned about the
state of the church today than I am about the state of the Union. And I am here to tell you that the
state of the church is in disarray.
And I believe the reason for that disarray is because the church has
abandoned the foundational truths of the gospel. Oh, most churches haven’t
changed their official statement of faith printed somewhere in their literature. They still claim to hold to the foundational
doctrines. But the truth is that
many of the essential doctrines of the gospel are never emphasized anymore for
fear of alienating someone. For
fear of appearing condemning. And
one of the first victims of this new apostasy has been to throw overboard the
doctrine of repentance. And what
is frightening is how this doctrinal error has infiltrated even many mainstream
churches today at all levels to the point of completely undermining the gospel.
I was reading a booklet the other day by a mainstream
evangelical church that purported to be teaching the way of salvation. And the
author recounted a story about a homosexual man that had contracted AIDS, who
called his office and said that he was dying and wanted to repent. This pastor told him, “The only thing I
am interested in is this, that you let God love you.” He said in the booklet
that even though the man had done wrong, that all that this man needed to do
was to let God love him and to come to the point of loving himself.
There was no talk of the need for repentance. In fact, this
dying man’s desire to repent was repulsed by this pastor. Even though Jesus said in our text in
Luke 24 that repentance is necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Even though 1John 1:9 says, “If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Folks, do not be deceived. To reject the doctrine of repentance is to reject the
gospel. And not only do you reject
the gospel, you reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 16:8, “And He, when He comes, will convict
the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” And if you reject the conviction
of the Holy Spirit, then you
cannot be saved because it is the Spirit that gives life.
Repentance is not only confessing your sins, but confessing
the need to know the truth about God and that we are inadequate to do so on our
own. Repentance is the key to the
truth. 2Tim. 2:25 tells us that we
are to preach the gospel “with gentleness correcting those who are in
opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge
of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of
the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”
See, this is why Jesus needed to open their minds to
understand the scriptures.
Repentance leads to the knowledge of the truth. And the truth is what makes possible
salvation. The truth will set you
free. When we know the truth, we
come to our senses, we see things clearly, and that enables us to escape from
the trap of the devil, where we have been held captive to do his will.
The devil’s lie is to say that there is no need for
repentance, that God is love and if God is love then that overrules all other
characteristics about God. God’s
love as it is defined today is nothing short of permissiveness. We do what we want, live the way we
want without any consequences to our sin.
They fail to take into consideration that Hebrews 12 says that if God
loves us, then He will discipline us, chastise us for our sins, so that we
might share in His holiness.
But the problem is that this unwillingness to repent has
caused a hardening of our hearts so that we cannot understand the truth, and
therefore we have a perverted perspective of God. Going back to that booklet I was reading from a while ago,
the author goes on to explain that this man did not need to repent to be saved,
but to just let God love him. And
he went on to explain what he believed biblical love looked like. He said “there is an order to God’s
love. I am not to love other’s
first. I cannot love even God
unless I love myself. I must let
God love me. That’s the way it
goes. First I let God love me. Second I love myself. Third I love God, and finally I am free
to love everyone else.”
I found it
interesting that he did not provide any Biblical references for that
theological statement. He just
said, “that’s the way it goes.”
Ok. Right…
Well, I have a couple of references that clearly declare the
opposite. Jesus said in Luke 10:27
that the foremost commandment was this: “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH
ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH
ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” Notice how God’s statement puts ourselves at the end of the
line, not at the beginning. You
simply cannot square his comment with scripture. Love the Lord your God first, completely, with every fiber
of your being. That hardly leaves
room for you to love yourself first.
If you listened to this guy then you just made yourself an
idol. You have put another god
(yourself) above the Lord.
Consider God’s definition of love in 1Cor. 13:4-7 “Love is patient, love
is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not
seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but
rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.” Did
you notice the phrase concerning love, it “does not seek it’s own?” How can you obey that verse and love
yourself first? It’s
incompatible.
And yet I’m afraid that this perversion of love has become
the foremost doctrine of the church today. This isn’t some lunatic fringe that
I’m talking about. This is main stream so called evangelical churches that have
emasculated the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Many churches today never preach the very message that Jesus came to
preach. “Repent, for the kingdom
of God is at hand.” This was the
message of John the Baptist, the message of Jesus, the message of the Apostles
and the message of Paul. And it is
still the message of the gospel today.
Because the gospel hasn’t changed.
Listen, when we understand the doctrine of repentance, when
we come to God in brokenness and humbleness, confessing our sins, asking Him to
make us new, asking Him to lead us in the truth, then we are transformed by the
power of the gospel. This is what
is missing today in modern Christianity.
We have been told to come as we are. And so we allow God to love us, allow Christ to die for us,
and then we continue just as we are in our sins. We are never changed.
We are never converted. We
may be a bit more religious from time to time. We may even be sincere. We may even believe in Jesus. But we have never been converted. We have never been transformed from death to life,
from walking according to the course of this world to walking in the Spirit,
from being dead in our sins to being made alive in Christ.
Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost says in Acts 3:19 in
the KJV, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted
out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the
Lord.” Oh folks, we need a time of
refreshing in the church today.
And that conversion comes from a broken and contrite heart. David said “a broken and contrite heart
O Lord you will not despise.”
How about you, do you need a time of refreshing in your
life? Are you harboring sin that
you have not given up to the Lord?
If so, then Satan has you in his snare, to do his will. I got another email from a lady the
other day. She occasionally sends
me messages by Joseph Prince who is the foremost false teacher of this false
doctrine which has eliminated repentance from the gospel. He teaches that as a Christian you
don’t need to repent of your sins anymore. He is like the false teacher spoken of by Paul in 2Tim.
3:6-7 which says, “For among them are those who enter into households and
captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always
learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived. Repentance is the key to the gospel. Repent
and the truth of God will be manifest to you, that you may be given forgiveness
for your sins, that your heart may be renewed again with Christ, and that you
might know the truth that will set you free.
This is the gospel.
And when we understand that, then we are able to be what Jesus has
purposed us to be; witnesses to a lost and dying world. This is our mission, the reason that He
has saved us and left us here while He has gone away to prepare a place for
us. That until He comes back we
might tell the world His gospel.
His gospel is powerful to save, to transform, when it is complete, when
it is Biblical and when it is confessional.
No comments:
Post a Comment