Admonition Podcast

Good afternoon.

We'll hope all of you had the opportunity to eat a meal as wonderful as the one that we
had here.

uh But I hope you don't fall asleep because you did.

So take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to the Book of Luke.

As we mentioned this morning, we're going to be discussing the events of the two disciples
on the road to Emmaus.

In Luke chapter 24, Luke records this event while not all of the other records of Jesus's
life do record this event.

But Luke will, and there's some surmising as to why Luke does when the others do not,
though Mark will mention it only in a single verse.

But Luke is going to record what

Jesus does as he appears to Mary after he has been resurrected, and then the disciples
will come and they will peer into the tomb.

You remember that the women will come to where the disciples are on that Sunday morning,
and they will inform them that the body is gone, that the tomb was opened, that there was

an angel that appeared to them and said that he is...

why do you seek the living with the dead?

and Peter and John will run to the tomb and they will race there and they will observe
that the linen cloth that Jesus was buried in and the bedding that was there or the

wrapping that was there around the body was folded neatly and laid there in the tomb, but
the body was gone.

They will have questions.

They will not...

understand everything that is taking place and they will depart.

Jesus will appear to Mary there in the garden, but then Jesus will depart.

And we find in Luke 24, the events that then proceed forth from that time.

In Luke chapter 24, verse 13, we read, now behold, two of them,

were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from
Jerusalem.

Now, as we begin this text, we'll notice that it says two of them, is the way Luke puts
it.

But the understanding that we should have here is two of the disciples of Christ, not two
of the apostles.

The reason why we believe that to be the case and should understand that to be the case is
because one of the individuals is named in the account and his name was Cleopas, not one

of the apostles.

The other individual remains unnamed.

Many individuals could surmise, well, I think it's this person.

I think it's this person.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I have an idea who it is.

I think it's either Matthias.

or justice who will be the two people who will be mentioned as potential apostles after
Acts chapter one.

But that's just my own opinion.

Others might suggest maybe it was Luke, maybe it was someone else who was a disciple.

We do have some indicators that it's probably not Luke because by all indications, Luke
was a Gentile and this appears to have been a Jew.

we'll get into some of the statements that lead us to that assumption and that
understanding here in a moment.

But it appears to be a Jew, two Jews that is, one of them is named Cleopas.

We don't read about him to my knowledge anywhere else in the New Testament, ah at least
not by that name.

And we don't read of anyone else named that.

But Cleopas and this other Jewish man are on their way to Emmaus.

They are going down to this village and I say going down.

I don't know uh if you would say going down in all points in time except Jerusalem was
built on a hill.

And so if you were pretty much going anywhere from Jerusalem, you were going down.

And so they're going down the road to Emmaus.

And as they're going, they're talking.

Now, the new King James interprets for us the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus to be
seven miles.

In the original Greek, it's at 60 stadia.

It was a form or a measurement that runs out to about roughly seven miles in distance.

So not a short journey, especially since they're walking.

Okay, so they're going to be walking for a while.

They start off on the road headed out of Jerusalem.

They begin to go down to this village called Emmaus, and as they're going, they're
talking, verse 14, and they talk together of all the things which had happened.

Now, they're disciples of Jesus.

We know that because they're from among them, and as they're going, they're talking.

because not so many days ago they would have been most likely listening to Jesus teaching
the temple.

Not so many days ago they perhaps would have witnessed Jesus enter into Jerusalem riding
on a donkey.

Not so many days ago they would have heard the crowd shouting out, Hosanna, Hosanna to the
highest as Jesus entered the city.

Not so many days ago,

They would have seen Jesus cleanse the temple of those who bought and sold.

Many of those who were present, who were with Jesus, who were followers of Jesus, were
those who had heard what he had taught.

Perhaps these two individuals had been with Jesus when he fed the 5,000, and perhaps they
had been among those who didn't turn back and walk with him no more.

But no matter who they were or what they had seen, they had seen enough to be disturbed by
the things they had seen, to be questioning the things they had seen.

So they were talking together of all these things which had happened.

So it was when they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with
them.

I thought about this for a little while.

thought, how did Jesus draw near to them and then go with them?

Was he traveling faster than they were?

Did he start behind them and catch up?

You know, when you think about the way traffic goes, these people are headed from here to
there and someone else converges with their path.

Did he come from off the side?

I don't know.

but now you know what it's like to be in my head.

But he drew near to them and he went with them.

Sometimes in our lives, we will find ourselves going somewhere and somebody comes right
along beside us and they were uninvited and unwanted.

And they start talking to us and we're like, can I move?

And if you're on an airplane, the answer is no, you can't, you're stuck in that seat with
them.

while they talk to you for the entire trip.

But as these disciples are talking, Jesus joins with them, drew near to them, went with
them, but their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him.

As you follow through the events that lead forward from the resurrection, when Jesus first
appeared to Mary, she did not recognize him.

When Jesus appears to these two individuals, they are

withheld in their knowledge from recognizing Him.

We don't understand all the things that that tells us.

We don't understand how God did it other than to say that God did it.

God withheld the knowledge from them that they were in the presence of the one whom they
had known, whom they had recognized, whom they had followed but a week before.

So their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him.

And he said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as
you walk and are sad?

We find here in the text that Jesus tells us something that the text hadn't already told
us, and that was their disposition.

They're talking about the events.

They're talking about the things that have happened.

They're talking about how Jesus, the one who they thought was the Messiah, has been put on
the cross and who has been killed, and now His tomb is empty and they don't know where

He's gone.

They don't know what's happened to His body, and they are sad at the news.

It is.

It is true that at times the things that should make us rejoice the most

cause us to be sad because we don't understand.

Have you ever thought about the fact that at times we become separated from a person who
we know and who we love, they move away, they perhaps go off to another place, and as they

move, we're sad because of their departure, and yet as a result of their moving, that
could perhaps be the best spiritual thing that ever happened to them.

And we're sad, but it's the best thing that could have happened.

Sometimes in life we have to realize that our understanding of a situation is far from the
reality of the situation.

These individuals, these two men, as they're traveling along, they're talking about the
events and they are sad because they believed something to be true and now they are

considering that what they believed was not true and they don't understand.

And because they don't understand, they're

attitude towards the situation is directly opposite of what it should have been.

But Jesus questions them.

He says, what kind of conversation is this that you're having?

Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered and said to him, Are you the only
stranger in Jerusalem?

And have you not known the things which happened there in these days?

In modern lingo, what planet did you fall off of that you don't know what's going on?

Are you the only person roaming around Jerusalem that missed all the crowds crying,
crucify him?

That missed all the signs and all the wonders and all the miracles that missed the things
that were happening at the...

How did you go to Passover and then leave Jerusalem and you don't know, or sorry, to
Pentecostal...

No, I got to write the first one.

Passover, leave Jerusalem and you don't know what's going on.

How did you miss the crucifixion up on Golgotha?

How do you not know?

And he said to them, what things?

As we consider this passage, it is important and um the students in the school uh often
find this to be true, that many people ask questions that they already know the answer to,

but they want to know what you think about the answer.

and Jesus is going to ask them, what's going on?

what things have occurred.

Jesus is fully aware of all of the things that have occurred, but He wants them to answer.

they said to Him, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in
deed and word before God and all the people.

Notice first that they identified Jesus by His origin in His earthly upbringing.

He is the Jesus that came forth from Nazareth, but they describe him as a prophet of God.

Now, by describing him as prophet, they're not denying the idea that he was the Messiah.

They're not denying that he was one who claimed to be the son of God.

They're not denying him the role of king or any of those things.

They're simply recognizing that he spoke on behalf

of God and performed the miraculous deeds to authenticate his source of knowledge.

So he is one who speaks on behalf of God.

He is one who is doing mighty deeds in both word and deed before God and all the people.

They are saying here is one who spoke on behalf of God and proved the source of his
message.

originating from God.

And how the chief priests, verse 20, and our rulers, by the way, that our rulers is why I
would suggest both of them are Jews.

They say our rulers did this.

They're claiming, unfortunately, much to probably their own chagrin, yeah, those chief
priests and those Pharisees and those scribes and those people who brought Jesus before

Pilate.

Yeah, those are ours.

He says, our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him.

Here was this man who came out of Nazareth, that place where Philip said, can any good
thing come out of Nazareth?

And yet here's this man who came out of Nazareth and who did all these wonderful deeds and
he did them before the people and before God and before everyone and spoke the words of

God and verified that he was from God and our rulers took him and killed him.

How do you not know this happened?

But we were hoping.

Now notice that.

But we were hoping.

that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.

These two men.

Reveal the cracks in their faith, in their understanding of what was going on.

Now, they're not alone.

The disciples, the 11, they're in the same boat.

But these two disciples of Jesus as they're walking down the road to Emmaus have cracks in
their foundation.

They have cracks in their faith.

They said, we were hoping

that it was going to be him who was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

We thought he was the Messiah.

Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.

Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us.

When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had seen a vision of angels
who said he was alive.

Now here are these two men, they're walking down the road, they're headed toward Emmaus.

You might ask the question, why are they going to Emmaus?

I don't know.

You don't either.

Luke didn't tell us what they're going.

Perhaps they were from Emmaus.

Perhaps they're going home.

Perhaps they had been in the city for Passover and now they're returning.

Don't know.

But we do know that they still were closely connected with the 11.

because very early on that Sunday morning when Mary and the other women came to tell the
apostles concerning the things that had happened, these men were around.

They heard what the women said.

They were aware of the things that were going on, which means when Jesus was placed on
that cross.

They didn't turn back and follow him no more.

They didn't depart and go off to a far country and say, well, I guess it's over.

They're there the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

And as that Sunday morning comes and as the message comes from Mary and from the other
women that they had seen the angels and that they had been told that Jesus was alive.

it didn't make them happy.

You say, wait a minute, how could they be true disciples and that not make them happy?

Because they don't understand what's going on.

They don't know if the women are crazy.

They don't know if this is some ploy by the Roman government or by their leaders.

They're confused.

That's why they're talking about.

And it is here that I want to mention one of the lessons that we should learn from this
passage is there is a difference between talking and understanding.

All you gotta do is listen to people talk about politics and religion and things happening
in the world to find out there's a big separation between people who talk about something

and people who understand it.

These two men were talking, neither of them had understanding.

They're trying to get there, but they're lost.

They do not understand.

And every piece of the puzzle they're trying to fit in doesn't fit in the puzzle.

And they don't know why.

They could have looked at the puzzle and they could have said, you know what, this piece
indicates that Jesus is the Messiah.

Jesus is going to redeem Israel.

And they like, yeah, it's in the right spot.

Have you ever done a puzzle where you put a piece in the spot that you thought, I know
that's where it goes.

And time after time after time, you try it.

Yeah, it's exactly where it goes.

Only you get to the end of puzzle and realize that is not where that piece goes.

I have, it's horrible.

I could have sworn that piece fit there.

That's what they're thinking about Jesus as the Messiah.

Everything validated that Jesus was who He said He was.

Jesus was a prophet.

Jesus spoke the words of God.

Jesus confirmed it by miracles.

Jesus said He was the Messiah.

How could Jesus be wrong?

Now Jesus has been put to the cross.

Now Jesus has been put in a tomb, and now Jesus's body is gone.

when they're confused.

and they're sad.

This is when they did not find his body, verse 23, they came saying that they had seen,
also seen the vision of angels who said he was alive.

And certain of those who were with us, notice the phrase with us, they were present with
the apostles when the women came that Sunday morning.

Those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him
they did not see.

They're referencing John and Peter who took off and ran to the tomb.

And John got there first and then waited and Peter went in and nobody.

No Christ, no Jesus of Nazareth was to be found.

Then he said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart, to believe all, believe in all
that the prophets have spoken.

Jesus a number of times after His resurrection will point out to His disciples that they
had a lack of faith, that they were foolish in their ignorance of the Scriptures, that if

they would trust God and know the Scriptures,

they would not have had such a difficulty understanding what was going on.

Now, that being said, you've got two men who are already sad, who are already confused,
and are already stumped about the things that are happening around them, and Jesus comes

and says, you're pretty foolish.

Jesus didn't pull many punches.

Jesus just said it like it was.

Jesus points out to them that their problem is a lack of scriptural perspective.

a bias that had caused them to think one way about Scripture, but had caused them to deny
the very truth of Scripture.

They were biased towards their idea of what it meant to redeem Israel.

You remember the apostles, even the eleven, are going to come to Jesus as He is about to
ascend back into heaven, and they're going to ask Jesus in Acts chapter 1, will you now

restore the kingdom to Israel?

Even the apostles are under the mistaken understanding that Jesus was going to reign on
the earth, He was going to be a king on the earth, that He was going to have an earthly

kingdom, and it was going to be Israel.

because of their bias towards the things which they had been taught about the Scriptures,
they had ignored the Scriptures.

And Jesus points it out.

Be careful.

Be careful as you're studying not to allow the things you've always been told about the
Bible to keep you from believing what the Bible actually says.

He says, "'Ought not'—verse 26—'the Christ who have suffered these things and to enter
into His glory?'

Say you uh want Christ to be the Redeemer of Israel, do you?

But you don't want Him to enter His glory?

You want Christ to reign and to rule and to benefit you, but you don't want Him to receive
the glory He's due from God?

and beginning at Moses, and all the prophets he expounded to them in all the scriptures,
the things concerning himself."

as they're walking.

they get a 4,000 year education.

of everything that God had been doing?

much like we started discussing this morning in the lesson.

Because the text is clear that Jesus begins with Moses' writings.

And Jesus starts taking apart the Old Testament there in their eyes and in their ears and
declaring to them, this was about the Messiah, this was about the Messiah, this was about

the Messiah, this was about the Messiah, this is what I had to do.

Now, interestingly, have you noticed when he first asked what it was that had happened,
they wondered how he could be so ignorant.

Now he's going to explain to them 4,000 years of God working and prove that it was them
who was ignorant.

We should be careful when we think we know something.

We might just find out we're wrong.

And so Jesus begins to explain to them all these prophecies and how they had to be
fulfilled.

If you go forward a few verses to Luke chapter 24, verse 44 on another occasion not far
forward from this one, He said to them, verse 44, these are the words which I spoke to you

while I was still with you.

that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets
and the Psalms concerning me.

And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

Then He said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to
suffer and arise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin

should be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem,

until you are in dude with power from on high.

Jesus is going to have to explain the exact same things to the eleven as He appears to
them forward from this event.

But as they're walking down the road to Emmaus, as they're journeying from Jerusalem to
this village, Jesus is going to begin to expound to them

the Old Testament scriptures and the prophecies concerning the Messiah.

Then they drew near, verse 28, to the village where they were going.

And he indicated that he would have gone further.

They're getting off on the exit and he's headed straight on and they go, no, no, no, come
with us.

No offense.

But too many Christians, if they had had to listen to a sermon for the whole trip from
Jerusalem to Emmaus for seven miles, would have been ready for the preacher to shut up.

so they could have some peace and quiet.

They would have been like the guy sitting on the airplane next to the person who wouldn't
be quiet.

Not these two men.

They don't want Jesus to leave.

They don't want this person who knows so much more about the scriptures in the Old
Testament and what was going on than they did when they thought they were the

knowledgeable people.

They don't want him to leave.

They constrained him, verse 29, saying, with us for it is toward evening and the day is
far spent.

And he went in to stay with them.

Now, are they brothers?

I don't know.

Were they from Emmaus?

Well, it seems like they at least have a dwelling place in Emmaus.

It could have been in Ian, but likelihood is they were from there.

So they say, no, no, it's getting towards evening.

You can't get much further anyway.

Just come stay with us.

So he went in to stay with them.

Now it came to pass as he sat at the table with them that he took bread, blessed and broke
it and gave it to them.

One of the things that you'll notice about Jesus in his meal time interactions is
sometimes he makes like he's the guest and sometimes he makes like he's the host.

You remember when he went to the place where Zacchaeus was?

And Zacchaeus is up in a tree and he comes to Zacchaeus and he says, Zacchaeus come down
for I'm going to your house.

These individuals, these two men invite him in, but when he sits down, he takes control of
the meal.

He begins to bless the bread.

He takes the bread and He gives it to them.

Verse 31, then their eyes were opened and they knew Him and He vanished from their sight.

Now already told you we don't have the ability to explain all the things about all the
things that occur after Jesus' resurrection.

But some of the things which occur after Jesus' resurrection make it incredibly clear to
us that Jesus' power to do what Jesus came here to do was not inhibited at all by having

gone to the grave.

Not far forward from this event, the 11 are going to be shut up in a room with all the
doors closed.

locked in as it were.

And Jesus is going to appear right there in their midst.

And yet at the point where Thomas doubts whether or not Jesus is actually resurrected,
Jesus will say, put your hand in my side, put your fingers in the nail prints of my hands,

and even Thomas will admit.

You're real.

He will say, my Lord and my God.

Jesus will sit down and eat with the apostles as he eats with these individuals.

But as Jesus blesses the bread, breaks it, and gives it to them, they finally recognize
who He is.

One thing that we should learn.

is it is a far different thing to know about Jesus than to know Jesus.

I can know about someone by reputation.

I can know a laundry list of all the things they've done.

I can know of their successes.

I can know of their failures.

I can know of all the things and details about them.

But if I've never met them, I don't know them.

These two men had met Jesus.

They thought they knew Him, but oh, they were woefully ignorant of who He was.

You remember they said, we had hope.

They were not thorough in their understanding of who he was.

but as their eyes are open, as they knew Him.

they realize that it's Jesus.

and the moment they realize it's Jesus, He's gone.

Verse 32.

They said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the
road and while He opened the Scriptures to us?

They're now examining the events that have occurred, the things that have happened, and
they say, we should have known.

My understanding of what that means is it's like it was just like when we were with him
before.

We should have recognized him just by the way he taught the scriptures.

You remember what was said about Jesus when the chief priest sent the soldiers to go
arrest Jesus and they came back and they said, never a man speck like this, man.

I think that's what they mean here.

I think they mean.

We should have recognized him, if we didn't recognize him visually, should have least
recognized him from the way that he taught.

Nobody teaches like that.

but they examine themselves and they said, did our hearts not burn within us?

while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the scriptures to us.

So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those
who were with them gathered together saying the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to

Simon and they told about the things that had happened on the road and how he had known
how he had known how he was known to them.

in the breaking of bread.

as Jesus disappears, as they look at themselves, imagine somewhat dumbfounded.

having the knowledge that Jesus truly is resurrected, they can't keep it to themselves.

They can't stay seated where they are.

They can't go to bed in their own beds.

They determined, no, we got to get up, we got to go back.

We've got to go tell everybody.

So having walked seven miles, they turn around after dinner and walk seven miles back.

Now you remember they had just told Jesus as he was about to carry on.

You can't get much further.

It's coming evening time.

Which means it was so important for them to take the word that Jesus was resurrected back
to the apostles that they walked through the night to do it

to share the Good News.

So we too should be learning.

There will be times in our lives where we will be tired, where we will have other plans,
where we will have things that were important that needed to happen, that we were headed a

certain direction doing a certain thing when all of a sudden it is more important that we
go spread the good news.

And we lay aside all the incredibly important things we were doing for the thing that is
of greatest importance, the message of the Gospel.

So these two men will rise up and turn around and go back to tell the apostles.

We've seen it.

And yet, as they arrive, as they tell the apostles, the apostles do not believe them.

Mark will tell us that he appeared to them in another form.

That's how Mark describes it in the one verse he uses to describe this event.

But that as they reported these things to the apostles, the apostles did not, the
disciples, the eleven, did not believe them.

So one last lesson.

Sometimes even the quote-unquote best Christians

Don't believe the truth.

and won't believe the truth when they're told it.

That's simply to point out that we should not put our faith in Christians, but in Christ.

We should not build our faith on top of the understanding of other people, but on the Word
of God.

We should build on the foundation which is Christ.

So Paul will tell the church at Corinth, you follow me as I follow Christ.

which in all points and in every location means this, you ever see me step away from
Christ, you quit following me.

These two men meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

They talk with him.

They listen to him.

Their heart burns within them.

And then they are aware of who it is that they're talking to and they rush back to tell
the apostles,

and the apostles don't believe.

kind of strange that we only give Thomas the phrase the the nomenclature doubting Thomas.

because they didn't believe the women and they didn't believe their own eyes and they
didn't believe the witness of the two men and they didn't believe Mary.

And we call Thomas the one who doubts.

Hopefully from this passage we'll learn some lessons for our own lives and examine how we
ought to take the Scriptures and understand them so that we can better understand Christ

and what He came here to do so that we in turn can declare the Good News.

If you have need of the invitation of Christ

to accept Him as Lord and Savior by entering into His body through baptism?

You can do that today.

If you've departed from Him and you need to come home, you can do that today.

If you're questioning things in your life and you need the Scriptures to help you
understand them, we'd be happy to help.

Why not ask?

Why not come?

As we stand.