I'll turn you to one of the most
familiar parts of the New Testament, the twenty
-fourth chapter of the Gospel by Luke.
Gospel by Luke, chapter twenty-four, at verse
thirteen.
I think we must read it again.
Behold, two of them were going that very
day to a village named Emmaus, which was
three score furlongs from Jerusalem.
They communed with each other of all these
things which had happened.
It came to pass, while they communed and
questioned together, that Jesus himself drew near and
went with them.
Their eyes were holden that they should not
know him.
He said unto them, What communications are these
that ye have one with another?
As he walked, they stood still, looking sad.
And one of them, named Cleopas, answering, said
unto him, Dost thou alone sojourn in Jerusalem,
and not know the things which are come
to pass therein these days?
And he said unto them, What things?
They said unto him, The things concerning Jesus
of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in
thee and God, before God and all the
people, and how that the chief priests and
our rulers delivered him up to be condemned
to death and crucified him.
But we hope that it was he which
should redeem Israel.
Yea, and beside all this, it is now
the third day since these things came to
pass.
Moreover, certain women of our company amazed us,
having been early at the tomb, when they
found not his body, became saying that they
had also seen a vision of angels, which
said that he was alive.
Certain of them that were with us went
to the tomb, and found it even so
as the women had said.
But him they saw not.
And he said unto them, O foolish men,
slow of heart to believe in all that
the prophets have spoken.
Behold it not the Christ to suffer these
things, and to enter into his glory, beginning
from Moses and from all the prophets, he
interpreted to them in all the scriptures the
things concerning himself.
They drew nigh unto the village, whither they
were going.
He made as though he would go farther.
They constrained him, saying, Abide with us.
For it is tawd evening, and day is
now far spent.
He went in to abide with them, came
to pass, when he had sat down with
them to meet.
He took the lute, blessed it, raked it,
and gave to them, and their eyes were
opened.
And they knew him, and he vanished out
of their sight.
They said one to another, Was not our
heart burning within us?
Hard he spake to us in the way,
hard he opened to us the scriptures.
He rose up that very hour, and returned
to Jerusalem, found the eleven gathered together, and
them that were with them.
This chapter, you see, is a story of
a transfigured journey.
There are many things in it, and, of
course, the supreme thing is that of written
law, that embraces and covers everything.
But I am not going to speak about
that particularly this morning.
I have it on my heart to speak
about this transfigured road.
The journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, six and
a half miles, was undoubtedly taken by these
two in a spirit of complete bewilderment with
their situation.
It proved to be a great turning point
in their lives, but when they set out
upon this journey, no doubt they had come
to feel that they had come to an
end of everything.
All that had happened spoke of an end.
The past, there had been much in the
past that held elements of a great hope
and expectation.
They had made a genuine, sincere committal of
themselves to that hope, to that expectation.
True, there had been much to take them
completely out of their depth, and to be
very perplexing, perhaps, to allow for questions at
times, and some fears was all so much,
so big, but, by and large, it had
stimulated a great hope.
Now, that had all ended in a great
disappointment, and things were apparently in ruin.
All seemed to have ended in disillusion.
The only course seemed to be to get
right away from the sphere of it all,
seek solitude in this country, village, well away
from the city.
And so, these two decided, take that course.
Let's get away, right away from everything.
Perhaps we'll get a better perspective if we
do get away.
And we can imagine the dialogue on the
journey, perhaps the longest six and a half
miles that ever two men traveled.
One said, well, Lopez, what do you think
about it all?
Have we made a great mistake?
Have we been deceived?
Have we been on a wrong road?
Seems that something like that has happened to
us.
The other would say, well, brother, it does
seem like that's true, but we can't forget,
can we?
Can't forget everything.
We can't just write everything off like that.
If you remember, then he would call to
mind some of those wonderful times with the
Master.
His words and his words, and so they
talked, tried to get to the bottom of
this mystery, to explain this great problem.
And as they went on, we know the
rest of the story.
Suddenly, conscious of another joining them in the
road, a stranger whose presence they had not
been aware until he drew up alongside and
interrogated them as to the subject of their
conversation, which was evidently one causing them a
good deal of distress.
And they stood still, looked at him, only
a visitor in these parts, but one who's
been and going to know what's been happening,
and he still drew them out.
You know, it's one of the master's tropes
of our great Master to draw us out
sometimes.
It's a great thing to be drawn out
and to have to explain your own trouble
and problems.
I think that is a lesson.
And so he drew them out until they
had no more to say, and then he
started.
And as he took up the scriptures with
which they were so familiar, and opened to
them the scriptures, there was a new movement
inside the dying embers, began to glow, a
new ray of hope broke up in them.
Some light was breaking, their hearts were warming,
perhaps some sense of shame was creeping up
inside of their foolishness.
Let us be quite sure about this, that
our authorized translation is not correct.
Fear, O fools, and slow apart.
Jesus did not say that.
That is a word that is used on
another occasion by Jesus.
If anyone called his brother a fool, he
was in danger of hellfire.
That was not the word that Jesus used.
It's the same word as Paul used to
the Galatians, O foolish Galatians, who have bewitched
you.
And our revised is correct, O foolish men.
It was not hard and cruel, an understanding.
That's the point we want to get at,
O foolish men.
Slow apart to believe.
Well, the arrival at Emmaus, eventually, a day
far spent, and these men couldn't let him
go like that.
Come in, abide with us, a day far
spent, it's dangerous to go on tonight, and
we want more of you.
So he went in and sat down to
meet with them, and as they sat down
to meet, he took the note and gave
to them, their eyes bottled.
Now, whether it was his sovereign act in
opening their eyes, or suddenly the remembrance of
what happened before, don't let us read into
this what it will not bear, these were
not of the twelve apostles, they had not
been at the Lord's supper and seen him
break the loaves and give.
But undoubtedly they had been with him at
some supper, perhaps mere feeding of the thousands,
when he took the loaves and broke them
and gave thanks, and probably on other occasions
they had had together something about this act
that was reminiscent, reminded them, or I say
it may have been his act of withdrawing
the veil, however, the point is they knew
him, he vanished out of their little return
journey.
What a transfigured road that was.
Everything was changed from the natural to the
spiritual.
They had gone in broad daylight, but it
was dark.
They returned at night, and it was light.
Yes, the whole situation was changed.
This is the sum of it, from the
natural to the spiritual.
The natural day and night was just a
paradox.
Now, what transfigured that road?
What was it that made that return journey
so different from the outward journey?
Let us note that it was an outward
journey.
If you like, I am going out quite
a lot in that.
Let's get away, let's get out, let us
go, an outward journey, not planned by the
law.
All outward journeys not in the laws are
bound to be very gloomy things, at least.
What was it that made the difference in
the two journeys?
Well, what will transform any such gloomy pathway
that we may travel?
What made them retrace their steps?
I am perfectly certain that those men never
thought that at the end of that day
they would be back where they were at
the beginning.
They would be going back again.
I am sure of that.
That was never intended, but something happened that
found them back again.
What was it?
Now, of course, leaving this great, all-embracing
reality that they had discovered that Jesus after
all was alive.
We've dwelt on that always when we have
read, meditated upon this chapter.
There are some other things here, I think,
lying right at the heart of this story,
which may be helpful to us.
First of all, they discovered that Jesus knew
all about them and their trouble, and although
they were very largely responsible for their situation,
he had not given them up.
That's a simple beginning of a transformed journey.
Only the time of our perplexity, our bewilderment,
yes, of our failure, when our hearts are
moving in the wrong direction, we realize that
the Lord Jesus never abandons anyone who is
sincerely, honestly, and truly perplexed with him and
his way.
He knows all about it.
This may be a word for somebody.
He knows all about it.
I'm quite sure that these men were not
doing this in a spirit of willful abandonment
of the Lord.
It was simply that they could not understand,
and they were reaching out for understanding.
They discovered that he understood and knew.
Let's take that example.
At the very beginning, he did not let
them go because they were having a difficult
and dark and perplexing time.
He never does.
Then again, they discovered that there was another
side altogether to the whole situation, a side
which they had never seen, and there always
is.
If we saw all, we would be saved
a lot.
Many of our deflections are simply because we
have only seen one side of the matter.
And if anything at all is true, what
happened on this road to make the difference,
it is this, that the Lord Jesus showed
them there was another side to this whole
matter, to which they were blind.
Dear friends, we must always believe that about
situations, however difficult and perplexing they may be,
and whatever amount of evidence there may seem
to be for our present cause, we must
always remember that the Lord sees another side,
and there is another side, and we must
seek to find that other side.
What does the Lord know about this?
What does the Lord mean in this?
There's something more in this than we can
see.
If we are the Lord's children, we do,
in our human limitations, see only one side
of things, and if only we could see
the other, we should be saved.
That changed everything for them.
They discovered that there was another side to
this whole matter, and the other side was
the much more wonderful side, the side which
wrote all of their side off as very
defective indeed.
They therefore discovered that there is buried, a
buried meaning to our deepest trouble, which
when we see it, makes foolishness,
foolishness of the way we've been contemplating and
doing.
Oh foolishness, there's a hidden meaning in suffering,
trials and difficulties, a divine meaning.
If only we could get our hand on
that, if only the Lord would show us
that, it would make foolishness of this thing
which we thought to be so overwhelmingly true,
right, where we were concerned.
Further, they discovered that although they had an
immense amount of Bible knowledge and truth and
teaching, those in the Bible, the Old Testament
which they possessed, and in the teaching that
the Lord Jesus had given them during these
past months and years, they possessed a lot
of truth, but there was lacking in their
apprehension of truth something which was vital to
their very survival in the day of the
ordeal.
That's something to learn.
Great tests came, not just to them, but
to all that they had received in the
past, and the test of the cross at
that time was whether they had got truth
in the mind, in the head, or whether
that was their very life.
These men discovered that they had very much,
but there was something which needed the touch
of the living hand, the hand of the
risen Lord, the touch of the spirit of
life upon it, in order that all that
they had should spring into life and save
them.
What we need, dear friends, is that the
truth that we possess is living truth, not
just truth as such, but that it is
our very life.
This is thereafter history.
It had all become a lie.
It only came alive through a very deep
ordeal.
This whole story circled round that mighty word
of his, ought not the Christ to have
suffered, ought not the Christ to suffer.
In that he gathers up, you see, all
his discourse from the Old Testament, showing that
the Christ must suffer, he must.
The cross is essential to everything.
It was not until they themselves came right
into a deep and terrible experience of the
cross that the way was opened for all
that they held in their mind to become
their salvation.
It worked like this.
Here they are, everything in devastation, terribly deep
experience.
But through the very experience of the cross
in their own hearts and lives they were
able to say, now I see, now I
see what I've never seen before and all
that I knew I'd never seen before.
Ought not the Christ to have suffered.
The cross is essential to our seeing, but
the cross is not objective, the cross is
not just historic, the cross has to come
right into our experience and smash everything that
is not true.
See, there was a mixture about their position,
no doubt about that, mixture about it.
We had trusted that it had been him,
he who should redeem Israel, save Israel.
But we know what was bound up with
that hope, as we know from the gospels
themselves, a place in that kingdom, something to
minister to them, to their importance.
Father was mixture and the cross had to
rid them of all that was in their
position.
And it did it by first of all
taking everything away, everything away, the right and
the wrong went when the cross came in
and they had to start all over again.
But this time they're starting on clean ground,
pure ground, they see the meaning of the
cross.
So it was, that's the story, the necessity
of the cross in our life to get
us on true ground, safe ground, to explain
to us our own problems and our own
difficulties.
Ah, but a right understanding of that is
a really transforming and transfiguring thing.
It just does that.
See, it all comes back to this, this
whole story.
They had got an entirely wrong or inadequate
apprehension of the meaning of the cross.
And when they saw it, a right that
he opened to them, this suffering of Christ,
when they saw it a right, the whole
situation was changed.
Everything was transfigured when they saw it a
right.
When they themselves had gone out of the
picture entirely with all their interest, they can
go and preach the cross after this and
say in the cross, by glory, that day
the cross felt anything but glory.
What a change.
Now I don't know why the Lord would
put it on my heart to say this,
but it may be some have decided upon
leaving the situation.
Maybe you are going down this dismal road
of bewilderment and perplexity and disappointment and you
think disillusioned.
It may be that you will be tempted
at some time to do that, read again
this story, look into its heart and see.
Well, if it is an honest and sincere
difficulty that you're in, the Lord Jesus has
every sympathy with that.
He will only stay away if you are
rebellious and willfully forsaken him.
It's in the deepest of perplexities, inability to
understand, he's in full sympathy and he will
not give you up, he will follow you
through.
He will draw you out, he will require
of you to tell him exactly what the
trouble is and perhaps as you do that
you begin to see that it's not quite
so solid as you thought it was and
then he'll come back and with the touch
of his own hand he'll begin to show
you that there's something more in it than
you have seen, has a deeper secret than
you knew and in the disclosing of that
secret you'll be saved.
But you'll know this, that your experience was
after all what you have talked about so
often, the cross, the cross, the cross.
We can talk about the cross with a
doctor, we know all about identification with Christ
as a people but the Lord brings us
into an absolutely devastating experience, that's what it
is, to discover reality and that which will
stand us in good stead in the day
of the ordeal.