Well, I want to invite you to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 24. And the topic that has been assigned
to me, which you no doubt have seen in your conference guide, is entitled "Beginning with
Moses," subtitle, "Christ in all the Scriptures." And so, if you recognize that, that's coming
out of Luke chapter 24. And so I want to begin by reading this passage
and, as you're turning to it, I want to begin by just saying this: that the entire Bible
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament says He's coming. The gospels say He's here.
The book of Acts proclaim Him. The epistles explain Him. And Revelation says He's coming
again. That's the Bible in a nutshell. The very first verse of the Bible, "In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth" -- we know that that is the Lord Jesus Christ who
was God's agent in creation. John 1, verse 3 says, "Everything that has come into being
has been created by Christ," and Colossians 1:16 says that "all things are from Him and
by Him and for Him." And then the last verse in the Bible, Revelation 22 and verse 21:
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen." That's the bookends around the
entire Bible. And so the whole Bible is a "Him" book. It's all about Him, the Lord Jesus
Christ. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. And so I want to begin reading, and in verse
13. This is the passage that you're familiar with -- the road to Emmaus -- and beginning
in verse 13, we read "and behold two of them were going that very day to a village named
Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem." The setting is the very day of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. These two disciples on the road to Emmaus do not know. They've
heard reports that Christ's body is missing and that He's been raised, and they are now
leaving town. And as they are leaving town, they go back home to Emmaus. No doubt they
are dejected. In fact, we'll find out later they are very downcast and sad because this
One, in whom they have put their hope, things didn't turn out the way that they thought
they were going to turn out. They thought He was going to redeem Israel and establish
the Messianic rule, and it didn't happen. And so Emmaus is seven miles -- that's important
-- seven miles northwest of Jerusalem. Verse 14 -- "And they were talking with each
other about all these things which had taken place." And that refers to the last week of
our Lord's life, and the trials, and the crucifixion, and His burial. And these two men are just
engaged in this conversation. They're trying to sort it out in their own mind. "What did
we miss? What, what went wrong? What did we not grasp?" And verse 15 -- "While they were talking and
discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them." The next verse tells
us they don't have a clue that this is Jesus! And verse 15, verse 16 says, "Their eyes were
prevented from recognizing Him. And He said to them, 'What are these words that you are
exchanging with one another as you are walking?'" He's trying to elicit a response from them. And note at the end of verse 17, "And they
stood still." They just came to a standstill. They are in shock, and it says they were looking
"sad." I mean, they are so low they're playing handball against the curb. I mean, they, they're
at the bottom. And one of them -- verse 18, named Cleopas
-- answered and said to Him, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of
the things which have happened here in these days?" In other words, "Where on earth have
you been!? Everyone knows what just happened!" Verse 19 -- "And He said to them, 'What things?'"
And He is just reeling them in, and He's pulling it out of them. This is, this is all a set-up!
"And they said to Him, 'The things about Jesus the Nazarene who was a prophet mighty in deed
and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how our chief priests and our rulers delivered
Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who
was going to redeem Israel.'" In other words, they wanted Him to break the yoke of Roman
oppression and reestablish the theocracy of Israel. "Indeed beside all this, it is the
third day since these things happened. But also, some women among us amazed us when they
were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find His body. They came saying that
they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. Some of these were
those who went out" -- no doubt Peter and John -- "went out to the tomb and found it
just exactly as the women also had said, but Him they did not see." Now, Jesus now intrudes and He says, in verse
25, "'Oh foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?'
Then, beginning with Moses" -- who wrote the first five books in the Bible -- "and with
all the prophets" -- that would refer to the rest of the Old Testament canon of Scripture
-- "He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." Would you not have loved to have been a part
of that small group Bible study? I would have! Just think about this: this is Jesus teaching
on Jesus. That's as good as it gets. He is the greatest expositor who ever walked the
earth teaching on the greatest subject that there is in the universe! This is the living
Word expounding the written Word. This is Jesus preaching on Jesus! So, what do I want you to take from this?
Where, where did He take them? Where did He show of Himself? It's very clear that He sees
Himself to be the central theme of all the Scripture. Here we see the primacy and the
centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ! So I want you to note three things with me as we
look at these verses. Number one: I want you to see the perfect unity of Scripture. Jesus
here lays a very firm foundation. In verse 25, he talks about "Why are you so slow to
believe," note, "all that the prophets have spoken?" You see, Jesus understood that all
of the prophets have spoken with one voice; that they have never contradicted themselves;
that, as the prophets have spoken, and as it is recorded in the Scripture, that there
is perfect unity and perfect harmony. No one prophet contradicts another prophet. They,
they speak one message, one truth. And then we see, in verse 27: "Then, beginning with
Moses," who wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, "and with all of
the prophets" -- that would be from, what is in our Bible, from Joshua to Malachi, the
entirety of all 39 books of of the Old Testament -- "He explained to them the things concerning
Himself," note, "in all the Scriptures." What the prophets spoke in verse 25 is what is
recorded in the Scriptures in verse 27. The word "Scriptures" simply means "the writings."
It comes from the Greek word graphe which we use "graphics" in the English language.
And so Jesus is referring here to the written Word of God. And so Jesus is asserting the
perfect unity of the Scripture, from Moses to Malachi. It all hangs together. Here we see the perfect unity in the Old Testament,
as affirmed by our Lord, that there is only one origin of the world. There is only one
entrance of sin and death into the human race. There is only one diagnosis of man's problem.
There is only one way of salvation, and there is one standard of morality. There is one
design for the family. There is one flow of human history. There is one end of the age.
There is one final judgment. There is one final, eternal state. It is all taught with
comprehensive, yet perfect precision in the books of the Old Testament. And when the New
Testament would be written, it would simply be an extension, with perfect continuity,
of what was taught in the Old Testament. So that is the first thing that we draw from
this and that, in the Old Testament, there is only one way of salvation, and it is the
same way of salvation that we find in the New Testament. Wherever anyone has ever been
saved on planet earth, it is, as we discussed earlier in the Q and A, it is by grace alone,
through faith alone, in Christ alone. They looked forward to the coming of Christ just
as we look back to the coming of Christ. But anytime anywhere anyone has ever been converted
and brought into the kingdom of God, it is by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ
alone. So that is the perfect unity of the Scriptures. But, second, I want you to note the central
message of the Scriptures. And I want us to look at verse, verses 25 to 27 one more time.
And Jesus now states that He Himself is the master theme of the entire Scripture. So He
says, in verse 25, "Oh foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets
have spoken!" Well, what were they to believe? And the next verse opens it up, and Jesus
said, "Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His
glory?" There are three key words in verse 26: "necessary," "suffer," and "glory." And
Jesus is explaining to them that it was absolutely necessary that Jesus would suffer first before
He would enter into His glory. And in verse 27: "Then, beginning with Moses
and with all the prophets" -- and with that statement, Jesus is putting His arms around
the entirety of the Old Testament -- "He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all
the Scriptures." He understood that the overarching master theme of the entire Old Testament is
the Person and work of Christ. And this is not the first time that Jesus has made such
a statement. In John chapter 5 and verse 39, Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because
you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these" -- referring to the Scriptures
-- "it is these that testify about me." In other words, the entire message of the Bible
is one finger pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is testifying of Christ. That is why Paul
could say, in 1 Corinthians 1:23, "We preach Christ crucified." And that is why he would
say, in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, "For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified." And why he could say to the Colossians, in Colossians 1:28, "We proclaim
Him." Now, we would say, "Now wait a minute, Paul. You taught the full counsel of God.
You taught all ten areas of systematic theology." And we have the 13 epistles that, that Paul
wrote, and we know that Paul preached on and wrote concerning bibliology, theology proper,
Christology, pneumatology, angelology, anthropology, hamartiology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology.
He taught the full gambit of theology, yet Paul says, "I determined to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Yet he taught all of these other areas of
theology. How does that square? All of the lines of
Paul's theology were intersecting at the summit and at the highest point: in the Person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the Father says, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him."
And even the Holy Spirit has come into the world, Jesus said, to bring to our remembrance
the things that He spoke. And in the Great Commission, we are to go out, and to make
disciples, and to baptize and to teach them all things that Christ has commanded. So Jesus
is set at the pinnacle of the message of Scripture, and He is set at the pinnacle of all of the
lines of of theology. And as we preach the full counsel of God, it is Jesus Christ whom
we are showcasing. Bibliology is, in reality, the Word of Christ. Theology proper: Jesus
is the image of the invisible God. He certainly is the heart of Christology. Pneumatology:
He -- it is the Spirit of Christ. Angelology: Jesus says that they are ministering to Him.
And we are made in the very image of God in Christ: that is anthropology. Etc, etc, all
the way down to eschatology, and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. So as we come to
the Old Testament, we are not surprised that Jesus would make such an expansive statement
as this: that, beginning with Moses and with all of the prophets, they testify of Him,
and that He explained Himself in all of the Scripture. So, what, what do we take from this? Well,
the first thing that I want to say is I do not believe that Jesus is teaching that He
is in every single text of the Old Testament. That is not what He is teaching. The road
to Emmaus, verse 13 tells us, was seven miles. The average person walks seventeen -- in one
mile, it takes 17 minutes to walk one mile. The total walk would've been 119 minutes,
which is less than two hours. This was not a walk to the North Pole. This was a walk
to Emmaus. And so Jesus only had time to address the high points, to address the mountain peaks.
So Jesus did not even have the time to go into every nuance of the Old Testament in
this text. In fact, it takes -- to read the entire Old Testament, the average person,
it takes 40 hours. Jesus had maybe an hour and a half. And so He can only address those
major places where He would be found. And so, where are we to look for the Lord
Jesus Christ? Well, He says, in verse 26: "Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer
these things and to enter into glory?" I first want to comment on the word "necessary." It
was necessary for Him to suffer and necessary for Him to enter into glory because the Old
Testament had prophesied of these things. "And the grass withers and the flower fades
away, but the Word of our God abides forever," and everything that was recorded in the Old
Testament of the prophecies of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was necessary
that they would be fulfilled with great precision. Now Jesus, according to verse 26, addressed
those portions of the Old Testament that foretold and foreshadowed that it was necessary for
Him to suffer. That was the part that they had missed. That was the part even the disciples
missed. They saw only the glory. They did not see the groanings and the crucifixion.
And so Jesus now must correct their misunderstanding that, before He would enter into His glory,
the Old Testament stated again, and again, and again, that He must suffer. And His suffering
is inclusive in His sin-bearing, substitutionary death upon Calvary's cross. Well, where in the Old Testament do we find
the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ? And it begins in Genesis 3 and verse 15 -- the
protoeuongelion, the first mention of the gospel. God Himself is the preacher in the
garden, and the congregation is the Devil, the serpent. And God proclaims that the heel
of the seed of the woman must be bruised, but He will crush the head of the serpent.
But He will be bruised, and He will suffer. But He will recover from that suffering. And
even in that is a foreshadowing of the Resurrection. And then there was the animal in the garden
that must be slain, and be skinned in order to clothe Adam and Eve, and that too, a foreshadowing
of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, in Genesis 4, the blood of Abel's
sacrifice must be shed in order for it to be a better and more acceptable sacrifice. The ram caught in the thicket must be offered
up by Abraham in Genesis 22. And it was a foreshadowing of the suffering of the Lord
Jesus Christ, a substitutionary suffering. And the Passover lamb must be slain, and the
blood must be applied to the lintels of the door. But there must be a death. There must
be a death of the one who is innocent on behalf of the one who is guilty. The entire Levitical sacrificial system was
a foreshadowing of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Leviticus 1 through 5, we
read that the head of the house must slay the young bull and offer up the blood. He
must skin the burnt offering. There is suffering in the Old Testament in foreshadowing the
coming of Christ. The goat must be slain on the day of atonement. The bronze serpent must be lifted up in the
wilderness. The cursed man must hang on a tree, in Deuteronomy 21. And the greater Son
of David must cry out, in Psalm 22:1, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And
this psalm goes on to talk about the suffering of this one. He would be surrounded by many
enemies who are like roaring lions. They must pierce his hands and his feet. They must count
his bones. They must divide his garments. It was foretold in the Old Testament of His
sufferings that He must be betrayed by a friend who eats bread with Him. He must be betrayed
for 30 pieces of silver. He must not have a bone broken. He must be pierced, and looked
upon as a public spectacle. The Servant of the Lord passages in Isaiah
42, 49, 50, and 52 and 53 speak of how He must suffer. He must be the despised one.
He must be abhorred by the nation -- Isaiah 49:7. He must give His back to those who strike
Him and His cheeks must be plucked out, or His beard must be plucked out. It says in
Isaiah 52:14, He must have his appearance marred more than any man. Isaiah 53:3: He
must be despised. He must be forsaken of men. Same verse: He must be a man of sorrows. He
must be acquainted with grief. He must bear the sins, bear our griefs and carry our sorrows.
He must be pierced for our transgressions. He must be crushed for our iniquities. He
must suffer our chastening and our scourging. He must be oppressed. He must be afflicted.
He must be cut off from the land of the living. Time does not permit us tonight to walk all
the way through every portion of Old Testament Scripture, but suffice to say, there is this
clear message that this Messiah who will come, He must suffer rejection. He must suffer death.
He must be One who will be cast down before He will enter into His glory. That is what
His own disciples missed. That is what these two disciples missed. This is what we more
clearly understand in the light of New Testament Scripture. Oh, the message of the cross is an offensive
message. The message of the cross is one of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ as
He bled and died in the place of sinners. He laid down His life a ransom for many. It
is a message of great sorrow, and suffering, and sin-bearing that runs throughout the Old
Testament. But also, in verse 26, we see that is was
necessary also for Him to enter into His glory. His suffering was not the end of the story.
The suffering was simply the means by which He would enter into glory, because following
His rejection would be His reign, and following His death would be His diadem. In Isaiah 53
and verse 10 so clearly speaks of this prophetic necessity that He would enter into His glory
after His suffering. We read, "He will see His offspring." Now that's strange. A man
will be put to death, but He will see his offspring? "He," referring to God the Father,
"will prolong His days," referring to the Son of God. "The good pleasure of the Lord
will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul He will see it and be
satisfied." Verse 12 of Isaiah 53: "I will allot Him a portion with the great and He
will divide the booty with the strong." Daniel 7, verse 14, speaks of Him entering
into this glory as He approaches the Ancient of Days. And it says, "To Him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples and nations and and men of every language
might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion and will not pass away." This, too,
is the entire message of the Old Testament. It's basically two-part. It is His suffering
and it is His glory. And in the short time that Jesus had on the road to Emmaus, He put
His arms around the entire Old Testament. It says, "It is filled with the gospel message.
It is filled with the message of Me." And while Christ is not the subject of every Old
Testament passage, He is the speaker in every Old Testament passage. And every Old Testament
passage plays its part, like putting bricks in a wall, to support the whole message that
the Lord Jesus Christ -- the Messiah, the Son of David, the Seed of the woman, the Seed
of Abraham -- He is coming, and He will bring salvation to His people. And this is exactly what the apostles went
out, in the book of Acts, and proclaimed. They simply preached the Old Testament, because
there was no New Testament at this time. And as they preached Christ, they used the Old
Testament to preach Christ, and thousands were converted. Peter, on the day of Pentecost,
what does he do? He quotes Joel 2:28-32. The last verse says, "Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Peter then goes into an exposition. What is
the name of the Lord? And he will say it is "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you
by God with many signs and wonders that you put to death but God raised from the dead."
He then goes to Psalm 16, verses 8 through 11. He then goes to Psalm 132, verse 11. He
then circles back to Psalm 16. He then comes to Psalm 110, verse 1: "The Lord said to my
lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for you.'" The entire
sermon on the day of Pentecost that proclaimed the gospel of the Person and work of Christ
was Joel, was Psalm 116, Psalm 132, Psalm 110. And if we had time tonight, which we
do not, but we could go through Acts chapter 3, and that great sermon that Peter preached
after he healed the lame man. It's just an exposition of Christ in the Old Testament. And what does Stephen do, in Acts 7, as he
is before the Sanhedrin? He walks through the whole Old Testament that leads up to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And in Acts 8, the Ethiopian eunuch, and Philip pops into the chariot,
and, "What are you reading?" and he's reading Isaiah 53. "Do you understand what you're
reading? 'No, not unless someone explains it.'" And it says he preached Jesus to him
using the Old Testament. And we see the same on the mission field with, with Paul, as he
preaches through Galatia. And as he comes to Thessalonica, in Acts 17, he goes into
the synagogue and explains to them the Lord Jesus Christ in all of the Old Testament. So what Jesus is doing here, on the road to
Emmaus, is what we must understand that the thread that runs through the Old Testament
is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into this world. And He is there in prophecy. And
He is there in type. And He is there in foreshadowing. And He is there in so many different ways.
He is there in Christophanies. This is the central message of the Old Testament. If you
read the Old Testament and you do not see the Lord Jesus Christ, you're reading the
Old Testament in a dark room with your eyes closed and the Bible's upside-down. And you've
got blinders on, and then sunglasses on top of that. Now, finally, what is the proper response?
I want you to look at verse 32. I must quickly wrap this up. They continue on into Emmaus,
and Jesus gives the appearance that He is going to continue His journey. And they beg
him and persuade Him to stay. And so Jesus stays with them and actually serves them food.
And then suddenly vanishes, verse 31. "And their eyes were now," at last, "opened, and
they, they recognized Him," and as soon as they recognized Him, verse 31, He vanishes
into thin air. This is just like on the, when He appeared in the upper room. He, he didn't
open the door; he just walked right through the walls. And He just appeared in the upper
room. He just appeared on the road to Emmaus. And now, in His resurrection body, He just
vanishes. Notice what they said in verse 32. "They said to one another, 'Were not our hearts
burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the
Scriptures to us?'" You want your heart to be on fire for the
Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to have a zeal for God? And do you want to throw off lukewarm-ness?
Do you want to be lit up for God? And do you want to have a spiritual pulse and a spiritual
heartbeat? Do you want to be able to say, "My heart is burning for God and burning for
the Lord Jesus Christ?" Then read the Old Testament, and let Jesus show you Himself
in the Old Testament. And read the New Testament, and see the greater light of the New Testament
be shined upon the Old Testament. But what is important is that you see Jesus. What is
important? The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing in
the Bible is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ on a mission of salvation, on a mission
of redemption, that He would save His people from their sins. And as we find ourselves here tonight, we
could not gather this many people together in one room and every one be born again. As
you would find yourself here tonight, and if you come, are coming to the awareness that
"I have never believed upon Jesus Christ. I have never committed my life to Christ,"
I call you to believe upon Christ tonight. He entered this world born of a virgin. He
lived a sinless and perfect life. He lived the life that you and I could never live,
and His perfect righteousness is what is credited to our account when we believe upon Christ.
He was qualified to go to the cross, and there He was lifted up to die upon Calvary's cross.
And God transferred the sin of all the people who would ever believe upon Him and He transferred
that sin to Christ. And Him, who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us. He suffered, and
bled, and died upon that cross. He gave His life that you and I might have life. He shed
His blood to make the only atonement for our sin. He was the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world. They took Him down from that cross, having made the atonement for
sinners. They buried Him in a borrowed tomb. And on the third day, He was raised from the
dead, and He then entered into glory on the day of His ascension. He is now seated at
the right hand of God the Father. And the Bible says, "Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved." You must believe in this One who suffered
upon Calvary's cross. He suffered the wrath of God in the place of those for whom He bore
their sin. And He has now entered into glory. And if you'll commit your life to Jesus Christ,
He will take you into glory one day, when He returns or when you die. There is salvation
in no other name. "For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved." There is one God and one Mediator between the Lord -- One God and one Mediator
which is the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life a ransom for many. If you will commit
your life to Jesus Christ; if you will deny yourself, and take up a cross, and become
a follower of Christ, if you will enter through the narrow gate that leads into the kingdom
of God, if you will take that decisive step of faith, and surrender and submit your life
to the lordship of Jesus Christ, He will receive you. And one day, when you die, He will take
you home to be with Him in glory. And He is preparing a place for all those who will commit
their life to Him. This is the message of the Old Testament!
This is the message of the New Testament! This is the message of the entire Bible -- that
our all-loving, gracious God has provided salvation in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ.
And Jesus, as He walked on the road to Emmaus that day and looked into the Scriptures with
them, He said, "They testify of me. And they speak of my suffering and my glory." And may
you know what it is to enter into the kingdom of God, and enter into His glory one day when
He comes for you. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank You for the preeminence
of the Lord Jesus Christ in all of Scripture. We praise you that He steps out of the pages
of even the Old Testament as the central message, as the object of our faith, as a Savior and
Lord. And Father, thank you that you have opened our eyes, that we might behold our
need of Christ and see who Christ is. And for any here tonight who have never come all
the way to faith in Jesus Christ, oh God, I pray that tonight would be that night, and
that they would surrender their life to Christ and enter in to the kingdom of God. Father,
we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
