Well, it's great to see all of you here this morning. And that singing sounded fantastic. Praise the Lord. Let's take our Bibles and open up the Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24. The report I got for the men's retreat last night was that it was epic. Epic. So, if you have a husband, a father, a son, a friend, that's at this retreat, be sure when they get home today, you ask them about all the great things that the Lord did up there on the mountain this weekend. The theme of the retreat, as you heard, is The Road to Christmas. That's really the theme for our whole church this month. And that's the title of the sermon today, and we're going to kick start this walk down the road to Christmas by walking down another familiar road in the Bible. And that's the road to Emmaus. That's what we're going to read about here in Luke 24. And you know, there are a lot of special things associated with Christmas. As we remember the birth of Christ, we think of certain prophecies at this time of the year; we think of Isaiah 7:14, the prophecy of the virgin birth. We think of Micah 5:2 and the prophecy that he will be born in Bethlehem. But what we're going to see in our text is that there are many prophecies that Jesus is going to point to that talk about him. So, if you're there in Matthew 20 and Luke 24, let's stand in honor of God's Word, as we read Luke 24:13-35. Luke 24, starting in verse 13, says,
“That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?’ And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’ And they said to him, ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and Word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.’ And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Amen. You may be seated. Let's pray as we start our time in God's Word,
Lord, we're thankful for your Word. We pray, Lord, that we might esteem your Word as highly as Jesus does, even as we read in this passage, that our ears will be attentive, our eyes will be open to what you have to say to us from your Word here today. So, we commit this time to you, asking you to work in our hearts for we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It's amazing to think about that road, that walk down the road to Emmaus, the two men with Jesus, and I want us to consider what can we take away from that time, that conversation that Jesus had with those two men. So, look again at Luke 24:25-27, and let's zero in on some things here as Jesus responds to these men and what they have told him, their take on what has just happened in Jerusalem. Here's how he responds to them. He said to them, “And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
So, you put this down for point one: We want to look for Christ in Scripture. Look for Christ in Scripture. These men were sad. They were sad because things didn't turn out the way they thought that they were going to turn out. They had high hopes for this Jesus of Nazareth. He had done mighty miracles. He had preached powerful sermons. And they had hoped, as it says, verse 21, “had hoped” past tense, “had hoped that he was going to be the one to redeem Israel.” They wanted a great political leader. But now their hopes have been crushed. Verse 19, they say he “was a prophet mighty in deed, and where he was. But now verse 20, the “rulers have delivered him to be condemned to death, and they crucified him.” The story is over. Jesus corrects them, rebukes them, and says that they are foolish, and slow of heart, because they didn't believe all that the prophets had spoken. They should have known better is what he's saying. They should have known better because they had all of the Scriptures. And what you take away from that is that Jesus expected them, just like he expects you and me to know all of the Old Testament. At least ten times in the gospels, we read where Jesus asked the people, have you not read? like he was expecting that they would know these things. You can see one of those in Luke 6:3, he expected them to know, to understand and believe all of the Scripture. So, if you have a Bible, you're accountable to know what it says. You're accountable to know the Scripture. And I think that's a big thing to talk about today. Because today, we have so many Bibles available to us, you may have a collection of Bibles at home, but yet we struggle with a low level of biblical literacy. So many Bibles, but so many people don't really seem to know what they say. We need the same view of Scripture that Jesus had that if you have the Scriptures, why wouldn't you want to know all that? It says, a partial understanding, a superficial understanding of the Scriptures lead to misunderstandings, which is where these guys were at. And that leads to false hopes which they had. And then when those false hopes don't come true, they are hopeless. They're sad, disappointed, depressed, because what they were hoping for didn't come true. But what they were hoping for wasn't true. So, what does Jesus do besides rebuke them? It says in verse 27, that he opened up the Scriptures for them, and he told them about himself from the Scriptures. It says, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
What a message that would have been! Where can I download that one? I mean, I need to hear that message. I mean, this is the greatest teacher ever, Jesus, speaking on the greatest subject ever, Jesus, and he ought to know. And he lays it out for them. They're opening up the Scripture and teaching them and that word there he interpreted to them all the Scriptures is an interesting word. The Greek word there's the word we get our word hermeneutics from, you're saying, Herman who? Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics are the rules of interpretation, where you have to look at things like vocabulary and grammar in context. And what you see here is that when you look at the Old Testament and interpreted correctly, you're going to see that it's all about Jesus. Now, we're told that it's seven miles from Jerusalem out to Emmaus, so what's that about? An hour and a half to a two-hour walk maybe. So, Jesus obviously didn't talk about everything in the Old Testament, he wouldn't have had time to do that. And we're not saying that Jesus is in every verse of the Old Testament. We're not saying that. But notice that he did focus on the things concerning himself. And he did talk about what was necessary. You see that in Luke 24:26. He talked about the things that the Scriptures point out that were necessary for the Savior, the Messiah to experience. And first of all, it was necessary for Christ to suffer. To suffer, it was necessary it had to happen. They had to suffer their salvation; no other way other than a sacrifice be made to satisfy God's justice. And that's what he did. And you could start thinking about what verses would he have gone to?
Well, you could start in Genesis chapter 3, Genesis 3:15. In the garden, right after Adam and Eve sinned, God is talking to the serpent, he's talking to Satan. And he's saying there's one coming, and he refers to him as the seed of the woman, which is an interesting thing to think about the seed of the woman is going to come, and he's going to crush your head, Satan, but you will bruise his heel. So that's the first indication that the one coming, the Savior coming, was going to suffer, he's going to have his heel bruised by the serpent. And then just a few verses later, in Genesis 3:21 God has to kill some animals to provide covering for Adam and Eve. That's the first death in creation. And it's because of sin, sin brings death. And then you get to Genesis 4, and Cain and Abel bring their sacrifices to God, and Abel’s is accepted because it was a blood sacrifice.
Genesis 22, you see, Abraham is told to take his son, his only son, his beloved son, Isaac, and sacrifice him, which is obviously a picture of God would be sacrificing his son. And when they get up on the mountain, and Abraham is just about to kill Isaac, God stops him. And God provides a ram as a substitute. Oh, we need somebody as a substitute for us, who suffers in our place, who takes what we deserve, so that we can stand right before God, and you see the prophecies and the pictures, and the predictions all through the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, you have the Passover, the people were spared because they shed the blood of a Passover lamb and put the blood on their doorposts. And God passed over them. They were spared in the judgment that came. And Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's our Passover lamb. You get to Leviticus, and you start reading about the Day of Atonement, a day when sacrifices had to be made on behalf of the people for their sins for the forgiveness of their sins. Numbers 21, the people are being bitten by poisonous snakes. And Moses is told to make a bronze serpent, put it up on a pole. When people look at that they will be saved. They won't die from the bites of the poisonous snakes, and Jesus in John 3 points to that and says just like that bronze serpent was lifted up to save the people, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, talking about his death on a cross. And speaking of that, Psalm 22 starts off with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The very Words that Jesus would say, on the cross.
So, there are many passages in the Old Testament that talked about the coming Messiah and his suffering. Let's look at one. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53:3, powerful passage that talks about the suffering of the Christ. This section of Isaiah talks about the suffering servant, the coming servant of God, and here we're talking about how that servant of God would suffer. How the Messiah would suffer. Isaiah 53:3 says, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed. All we, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yeah, we're straying sheep, we're wandering sheep, we're lost. We need somebody to bear our iniquities. And that's what the Messiah would do. That's what the Old Testament taught, that's what they were looking for is the one who would come and who would be the sacrifice on our behalf, be the substitute for us, so that we could stand justified before God. And these are amazing statements here. And it's even more amazing when you consider when they were written. Moses, who wrote the first five books, the law, wrote fourteen hundred years before Christ. And then David, who wrote Psalm 22, wrote, a thousand years before Christ came, and Isaiah was writing seven hundred years before Christ. Three different men, three different times separated by hundreds of years, and hundreds of years before the events happen, say exactly what would happen. And these men that Jesus was talking to on the road of Emmaus, they should have known those things. They should have expected those things, because it's laid out so clearly and so abundantly in the Scripture. Well, Jesus said, it's not only necessary for him to suffer, but also to enter into his glory.
And if you're there in Isaiah 53, we can just keep reading and see about that as well. Isaiah 53:10, says that “it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put Him to grief, when the soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” So how is he going to be put to death, and yet he's going to see his offspring, his day shall be prolonged, well, that's a picture of a resurrection. He's going to die, and he's going to be resurrected, and he's going to ascend to a place of glory and see the fruit of his labors. Isaiah 53:11, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” What a great statement that is, to think that you and I could stand righteous before God. But that's what happened, because the one who came bore our iniquities, and he's been glorified as a result of the work that he has done. Isaiah 53:12 goes on to say, “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.” That's what the Scriptures teach, that one would come, and it would be necessary for him to suffer and then necessary for him to enter into glory.
In fact, another Scripture that we're familiar with, particularly this time of the year, is Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” You're familiar with that verse. You hear songs sung at Christmas time that contain those Words, but Isaiah 9:7 goes on to say, Of the increase of his government and of the end of peace there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.” It was necessary that he come and suffer, necessary that he enter into his glory. That's what you'll find out as you read through the Old Testament, looking for what it teaches about Jesus, the coming Savior, the coming Messiah, the Christ. You and I, we need to know the Old Testament, we need to know the law, the prophets, and the writings, we need to know because they tell us about our Savior, about our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus said this and John 5:39. He said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” Now and he says, you're these people there, you're searching the Scriptures, what Scriptures were they searching? Come on. Now this is Sunday morning. We're all at church, we know the right answers. You could say Old Testament, you could say Hebrew Bible, you could say, the law, the prophets and the writings. And Jesus says that they all bear witness to me. On the road to Christmas, we think about the birth of Christ, but that was not his beginning. He's eternal. He's God. He’s the second person of the Trinity. He's existed forever. And in fact, as you read the Old Testament, you might bump into some Christophanies, some pre incarnate appearances of the second person of Christ. And he was written about hundreds of years before he came into the world. That's important that we look for Christ as we read through the Scriptures, that we see him revealed. We understand his suffering, and we understand His glory. And I think it's important as we think about what he did there on the road to Emmaus, as we think about the conditions that we live in today, that he did not reveal himself to these men by revealing his person to them, he revealed himself through the prophecies. Because when he's giving this Bible study, they don't know who he is. But he's telling them about himself through the prophecies. I think that's important because many people today are wanting some experience. They're wanting some physical validation for them to be able to believe, but what the Bible says is more powerful to know Christ through the Scripture than any experience that you could ever have.
In fact, Luke makes a big deal out of that, not only here in Luke 24. But let's look at Luke 16 for just a minute, just to see another account where this point is powerfully made. And both the road to Emmaus account and this account that we're going to look at in Luke 16 are only in Luke's gospels, they are not in the other ones, because this is a major point that Luke is trying to make, as he writes his gospel account. Luke 16:19, this is the account of the rich man and Lazarus. Luke 16:19 says, “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.” So, Lazarus is eating out of the garbage cans at the end of the rich man's driveway. And he's not in good shape. This idea that the dogs came and licked his sores, that's not like a tender scene. Oh, look, Lassie came and is caring for him. That's not what's going on there. Dogs back then were random wild packs, it wasn't a good thing to have dogs show up. And so, this is the guy’s condition. Luke 16:22-26, says “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.’ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.” So, here's the ending of the story of these two men. Lazarus is experiencing salvation, and the rich man is experiencing judgment. And those are the only two options. And look at what the rich man says in Luke 16:27. And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” I mean, that sounds like a reasonable request. Hey, I got five brothers. I don't want them winding up where I am. And if you could talk to anybody in hell today, they would say, yeah, nobody wants to come where we are. And so, it sounds like a reasonable request. But Luke 16:29, “Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.” That's an interesting response. That's a better than having Lazarus go back. Just have them read Moses and the prophets. And the rich man said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” If they just had an experience, if they just had a supernatural experience, they could see somebody come back from the dead and warn them, then surely they would repent and not come to where I am. But Abraham said to him, Luke 16:31, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
That's a powerful statement about the authority of Scripture, and the power of Scripture to change somebody's life, more convincing than rising from the dead. That's what we need to keep in mind in these days when so many people seem to want an experience. Now what they really need to do is hear the Scriptures and have the Scriptures opened up to them, and be shown Jesus Christ, the one who came to suffer and rise again. And with that in mind, let's go back to our text in Luke 24, and let's look at the response of these men, these men who had been sad in their hearts, they had been slow in their hearts. What happened at the end of this Bible study? Luke 24:32, says, “They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” He put that down for a number to be revived by Christ in Scripture. Why didn't Jesus make himself known right away to these men? Well, because the Bible is enough.
But here's another question you’ve got to ask is, as they got to their destination in Emmaus, they invite Jesus to come and stay with them, why did they do that? Why did they want him to stay? Some have suggested is because well, as they say, it's getting late, may not be safe for him to travel by himself. And so, they're being friendly. Others suggest that they're being hospitable, they're inviting him into their home. But I would suggest that they invited him to stay because their hearts were burning when he opened the Scriptures. They want more of this, let's keep the Bible study going. And in Jeremiah 23:29, God says that his Word is like a fire. His Word is like a fire. And no doubt the words that Jesus spoke to these men brought conviction to their hearts. Yeah, they wanted a kingdom, they were thinking that this Jesus of Nazareth was going to be the king that they were looking for. They were looking for this king. But nobody enters the kingdom on their own merit. That's what they were thinking, He's going to install the kingdom and we're just going to walk right in. But we're sinners, we can’t enter the kingdom of a holy God on our own merits. A sacrifice has to be made to satisfy God's judgment. And so, no doubt they were convicted, as they heard about how the Christ had to suffer because of the sinfulness of men. And they were convicted about the seriousness of their own sin and their need for a Savior. It's kind of like the crowd on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when Peter preaches there to them, and he opens up the Scriptures for them and shows them that Jesus is the Christ. And it says in Acts 2:37, have access to that “they were cut to the heart.” They were pierced to the heart; they felt the heat of conviction in their hearts. But true conviction leads to real joy. And I think that's the primary thing we're seeing here is the joy. No doubt that these men, their hearts burned with joy. Now they know the whole truth. Now their eyes have been opened. Now they really know Jesus. And I think that's why they get up right away and head back to Jerusalem to tell everybody. I mean, this idea of it's not safe to travel at night, well, it's not stopping them. They're getting up and heading back to Jerusalem. Their hearts burned with the joy that could not be contained.
Let's look at 1 Peter chapter 1 where Peter talks about how this is in the life of a true believer. This this joy that comes upon the person who really knows Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:8. Peter saw Jesus, he saw Jesus after he was resurrected. But he's writing this letter, this letter of 1 Peter to some people who had not seen Jesus. And they are living scattered all over the place. And they are suffering some persecution; they're suffering because of their commitment to Christ. And Peter is writing to encourage them and strengthen them. And here's what he says in 1 Peter 1:8-9, he says, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” So that's the way it is for somebody who really comes to know Christ, somebody who really comes to believe in Christ, somebody who loves Jesus Christ, they have a heart that is filled with joy. And they are rejoicing. Without even ever seeing him, they had come to know him through the Scriptures, and that it produced a heart of joy in them.
What's the condition of your heart today? Are you sad of heart? Are you slow of heart? You can't have a burning heart because of what Scripture can do in your heart. These men had been revived, their slow hearts were now replaced with burning hearts, hot hearts. They had hearts that burned with both conviction and with real joy. Do you want a hot heart? Do you want to have a true zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to be done with a lukewarm kind of a heart, kind of a half in half out following of Christ? Then read the Old Testament and look for Jesus. It transformed, it revived these two men. And it can do the same for anybody today. And to help you with that, we have produced a calendar that you can pick up on your way out that will lead you through readings this month, through the law, the prophets and the writings. And you can receive a little booklet like this at the Book Nook, kind of like the one we just had for job that will kind of walk us through those passages that you're going to be reading so that you can read the Scriptures and see Jesus Christ and have a heart. That's hot. We want hot hearts at Compass HB. Is that alright with you? We're looking for hot hearts here because people open up the Bible, and they see the Lord Jesus Christ. And they respond to him with belief and love because of who he is, and all that he's done. And the end result of all of that we're looking for is the same result that you see in these men.
Look back at our text and Luke 24:33-35 where it says, “And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Here's the end result of what we're looking for here. And you put this down for number three: You want to proclaim the Christ in Scripture. One sure sign of a burning heart are people who are witnessing for Jesus Christ. There's an eagerness to tell others about Christ. It says that they returned that same hour to Jerusalem. They weren't waiting around. They weren't saying well, we'll go in the morning, they got up right away, and they went all the way back to Jerusalem to tell what they had seen and what they had heard. And that's what Jesus wants from his people. He wants us to tell others about him, to open up the Scriptures and reveal the truth about him to others. Look down at verse 44. Now Jesus is appearing to the disciples, and he's giving them instruction. And here's what he says Luke 24:44-49, Then he said to them, “’These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything 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, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” There, Jesus lays out the mission for his disciples, those who have seen him, those who have known him, their mission is to go and make him known to as many people as they possibly can. And notice that he gives them what it is that they are to say, Luke 24:44, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’” We have seen the Old Testament record of Christ; we've just seen a little bit of it here today. And Jesus repeatedly gave the same message to these disciples that he now wants them to go take everybody else. Let me just show you those here in Luke, you're going to look at Luke 9:22 where Jesus for the first time really reveals himself to them, reveals his mission to them and what will become their message? This is right after he has asked them who do people say that I am? And they give the answer. You're the Christ, the Son of God. And Luke 9:21. It says, “he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one saying, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’”
So now Jesus is beginning to repeat the message, the same message that came out of the Old Testament. If you look over at Luke 9:44, they're in that same chapter. Luke chapter 9:44 he says, “Let these words sink into your ears.” That's a strong statement there. “Let these Words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” Let those Words sink in. This is what's going to happen to the Son of Man. In chapter 18 of Luke, we see the next time when he lays out for his men, what's going to happen. Luke 18:31-33 says, “And taking the twelve, he said to them, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” And the disciples all started singing Hallelujah, what a savior! Is that what happened? Luke 18:34 says “they understood none of these things. This thing was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.” They're still kind of scratching their heads, going, what is he talking about? They're slow of heart. They're not believing everything that the Scripture said. What happened even though he's saying, hey, everything the Scripture said is just what's going to happen. It's about to happen.
One more time in Luke chapter 22:37. And here he's going to quote a verse that we read from Isaiah 53. Luke 22:37 says, “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me. ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’” That's Isaiah 53:12 right there. “He was numbered with the transgressors for what is written about me has its fulfillment.” So, Jesus is not telling them something new. He is just telling them what the Scriptures have said all along, and he's telling them, hey, now it's about to happen. I am the Christ. I am the one that the Scripture has talked about. And now all of these things that the Scripture said, they're going to happen. They're going to happen, just like he said, and that's our message. It's the message from the Bible. It's a message about a Savior who came and died and rose again. Our message is not conservative politics. Our message is not morality. Our message is not the American dream. It is the Son of God who became a man, lived a sinless righteous life, and then offered up that perfect life as a sacrifice acceptable to God in the place of sinners. And the clincher that all that is true is that he rose from the dead. And all of that was foretold in the Scriptures. That's the biblical record. That's what the apostles went out and did. Like I said on that sermon on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, Peter gets up and he quotes Joel 2:28-32. And then he quotes Psalm 16:8-11. And then he quotes Psalm 110:1, and points out that all these things talked about what was going to happen to the Christ, and Jesus is that Christ. That's what he preached. Look with me, we've been following the Apostle Paul. And as we go through the book of Acts, look with me, it's Acts chapter 17. And just see what he does here as he follows the instructions given by the master. This is him in Thessalonica, the city of Thessalonica. And pick it up in Acts 17:2 says, “And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures.” What Scriptures? The Law and the prophets and the Writings. He reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead. Exact same message Jesus gave to those men on the road, to Emmaus, it's necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ, because he fulfilled all those Scriptures. This is a powerful message. That's what we need to proclaim to others and the Old Testament Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, those Scriptures are sufficient to lead people to salvation. If all you had was a Hebrew Bible, you could lead somebody to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, Paul says this to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15. He says, “how from a childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings,” Law, Prophets, Writings. You've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able or are powerful enough to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
So that's the message. It's the same message that Jesus proclaimed, passed on to the apostle,s now passed on to us, and it is the message that comes from the Bible. And we need to make sure that we call for the same response that Jesus is calling for, after you tell them what the Scriptures say. Luke 24:47, says “that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” True forgiveness for all of your sins forever is available. In fact that might be a good opening line in your evangelistic efforts, would you like to have all of your sins forgiven forever? That's what God is making available. It's available to everybody who will repent and believe the gospel. The gospel is good news. And it's received by those who turn away from sin. That's the idea of repenting and put their trust or belief completely in Jesus Christ as the one who paid the price, suffered the judgment that your sin deserved. So, the idea is that people are chasing after sin, and they make a complete turnaround to now they're following Jesus Christ. That's what we're calling people to do. And that is not what's being preached sadly, very frequently these days. You know, people need to understand that the decision is not between heaven and hell. The decision is between heaven in this world. Are you willing to give up this world and follow Jesus Christ? Really to turn from your sin and follow Jesus Christ. And that's a big concern because there's going to be lots of people in lots of churches during this season, singing Christmas songs, and all they are are nice religious people who have never really repented of their sins.
This is good news of great joy for all the people, and we need to spread it as far as we can. And to help you with that. We have little invitation cards you can pick up on your way out, to invite people to come here to hear the Scriptures. And it gives the times for our Christmas Eve services. People might want to come to that. You should take these and invite people to come and hear what the Scriptures have to say about salvation and eternal life. That's a great responsibility for us as followers of Christ. It's a great privilege for us to be able to tell others about Christ. Might seem that he says, tell it to the whole world, we might think, hey, we're having a hard enough time just telling it to Huntington Beach, that we can be encouraged in that because we have resources. Luke 24:48 says, “You are witnesses of these things.” Yeah, we're witnesses, all we need to do is tell what we have heard and seen. We are witnesses. And then he says, “And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Now we know from Acts 1:8 that power comes through the person of the Holy Spirit, and we need his power. We need his power to be these kinds of witnesses. We need his power for us to have the kind of courage that we need to have. We need his power to speak with boldness, and we need his power to really love people who need to know Christ. And we need his help in proclaiming the Scriptures. We need his power in our lives. We need his power working in the lives of the people that we're talking to. We need him to open up eyes. And that's what we've seen even in this text, in Luke 24:16. These two men were prevented from seeing Jesus, from recognizing him. By the time you get to verse 31, their eyes were opened. That's what we're praying that God would open up eyes to see him. We saw in in Luke 18:34, the disciples didn't have a clue what Jesus was talking about. But here in Luke 24:45, it says, “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” That's what we need him to do. To open up people's eyes, open up their minds to understand what the Scriptures are saying about Christ, and to see that Jesus is the Christ. This is what we want as we walk down the road to Christmas. This season, we want to look for Christ in all the Scriptures, and we want to be revived by Christ in the Scripture. Let's not just settle for a nice warm Christmas experience. You know where you got the fire going in the fireplace. Christmas lights are on, and you got your cup of hot chocolate. Let's go beyond the hot chocolate. Let's go all the way to hot hearts for Jesus Christ. How does that sound? You can still have your hot chocolate, but let's get the hot hearts, hearts that are hot for Jesus Christ. And let's proclaim the Christ of Scripture for the glory and honor of our great king and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. And let's pray.
Lord, we are thankful that we have the Scriptures. We must admit and confess that we don't always treasure it like we could, like we should. We leave large portions of it unstudied. And yet we see that you expect us to know what you've given to us, and to see how it all points to you, Lord, all of these Scriptures that tell us about a Savior who is coming, who must suffer and must enter into glory. And we know that that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I pray for all of us here today that we would be done with a slow heart, we put aside a sad heart. We'd have a burning heart, a heart burning for the Lord Jesus Christ as we see him revealed to us in the pages of Scripture. I pray that you would work in our hearts, and that you would use us to point many other people to the Scriptures and to the Lord Jesus Christ for his honor and his glory. We pray this in his name, Amen.