This morning we come to verse 44 in Luke 24,
open your Bible, if you will, to the twenty-fourth chapter of Luke, the last chapter and the
Scripture we're going to be looking at is verse 44 through verse 49. Before we do that, I need to give you a little
bit of an introduction to the introduction. After ten years and two months in the gospel
of Luke, we cannot just finish or end or stop. We have to complete our study and that's different. Any book that I ever begin, begins with an
overview and some kind of an introduction. If you have a MacArthur Study Bible, you can
see that to every book of the Bible there is an introduction, material that helps you
access the book in an more efficient and understanding way. We cannot come to the end of ten years plus
in the gospel of Luke and just stop. We have to grasp why it ends the way it ends
and all the implications that are contained in that ending. Consequently, it's too much of a task for
me to take you through verses 44 to 49 this morning so I'm going to keep you here all
day. (Laughter) No I'm not, I wouldn't do that
to you. But I am going to take you half way through
this text this morning and the other half will be tonight. We cannot just look in a superficial way at
the section before us. This section, verses 44 to 49, sweeps back
to the beginning of revelation, in the book of Genesis, and all the way to the end of
redemptive history. It looks at the mural of salvation from its
start to its finish. It is a sweeping conclusion, very, very carefully
crafted by Luke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It must be understood in its richness in order
for us to bring this book not to an end, not to a finish, not to a stop, but to a culmination
and a completion in the intended way that it is written. In this portion of Scripture, verses 44 to
49, there is in verse 47 the main focus of these words of our Lord, that repentance for
forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name. That is Luke's version of the great commission. Jesus is saying, the message that you are
to preach from now on is the message that calls men to repent and be forgiven in the
name of Jesus Christ. This then is the great commission, this is
the mission mandate. The parallel, Matthew's account; what I read
you earlier in the service, Matthew 28:16 to 20. There you have other elements and details. And, of course, what we have in the Scripture
is just a brief summary or a specific rendering of what He said at one point, but not the
whole conversation. You can put Matthew's account with Luke's
account and you get the complete revelation of this great mission mandate. The gospel of Luke ends then putting the reader
in the same place as the Apostles and the disciples, as being responsible for the proclamation
of what you now know. The end of the book will be written by us,
it will be written by you and me and all believers who obey this commission. The story is not over, the mural has not been
fully painted. Although it is outlined by God, it has to
be filled in in the living cover of evangelical testimony all the way to the end till the
Lord brings all human history to its climax, its finish. So what happens here in this portion of Luke
24 is we are taken briefly back to the beginning of this mural of salvation that sweeps through
all of redemptive history and then we are sent out and we can see looking forward to
its end. And we're part of it. And so, today and both this morning and tonight,
the implications of this entire understanding that you now have of the life and work of
Jesus Christ are going to be laid upon you. Since you know now what you know, you have
great responsibility for the proclamation of what you now know. You not only know it because it's written
in the gospel of Luke, but you know it because you've experienced it, because you belong
to God, you belong to Christ, you stand, as it were, in the shadow of the Apostles and
the disciples who received this command to go to the world with the message of repentance
and forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ, and you carry the same responsibility that
they had in their generation. The baton has been passed down every generation. It's ours and we will pass it to the next. So what we have then in verses 44 to 49 is
the Lord's mandate for the church in the world. Let me read the whole text to you so you have
it in mind. "Now He said to them, 'These are My words
which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are 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 He said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and
rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would
be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise
of My Father upon you but you're to stay in the city until you're clothed with power from
on high.'" Matthew tells us that Jesus said to His followers
on a mountain as He was giving them this commission, "You are to go and make disciples among all
the nations, bringing them to salvation and baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you and lo, I am with you always." Luke's version of it is the commissioning
of the followers of Christ to take what they now know is true concerning Christ of what
they are personal witnesses, as verse 48 indicates, and spread it across the world. This is the all-consuming purpose for all
of us and always has been. It is essential to understand this because
we can get caught up in the life of the world around us and we can even get caught up in
the life of the church, forgetting for a moment the life of the world around us which we assume
you would understand has no bearing on the Kingdom of God. Let's just talk about the life that we live
as Christians in the world which does have bearing on the advancement of the Kingdom
of God. We get caught up in good things like learning,
teaching, doctrine, reading about sound doctrine, understanding sound doctrine. We get caught up in good things like worship,
singing, praising God, listening to Christian music. We get caught up in the good things of fellowship,
being together, sharing our lives together, enriching one another, ministering our gifts
to each other, comforting, encouraging one another. We get caught up in prayer. We get involved in Christian service of all
kinds for the sake of the advance of the church. We pursue holiness in our own lives. And all these things are commanded of us in
Scripture but none of them is the goal. All of them are simply means to the goal and
the goal is to proclaim the gospel and to undergird that proclamation with a life of
credibility and spiritual integrity. We are living in a kind of life that will
make the message of the gospel believable. That's why we have all of these components. Scriptures tell us how to fellowship. Scriptures teach us doctrine. The Scriptures tell us how to worship, how
to obey, how to be holy, how to serve, how to pray. That's never the goal. That's never the end. Your spiritual growth is not the end. It is not the goal and it's not the objective. The Lord has given to the church Apostles
and Prophets and evangelists and teaching pastors for the edifying of the saints, for
the perfecting of the saints that the body might be mature so that, Ephesians 4, we may
speak the truth in love...so that we may be able to give to every man who asks us a reason
for the hope that is in us with meekness and fear, so that we may, as the Apostle Paul
said, be able to speak in a way that our speech is seasoned with salt and it goes forward
with an impact and an effect on people concerning the gospel. We are, as Paul was, doing what we do for
the sake of non-believers that the gospel may come to them and salvation may come to
them for the glory of God, 2 Corinthians 4:15, adding voices to the Hallelujah chorus. We live for this. All these other things are merely means to
our maturity and our spiritual integrity so we can live a life that undergirds the message
and don't come across as hypocrites. So if you do all of those things, but never
proclaim the gospel, you have forfeited the purpose for which all the others exist. God has called His people since this great
commission, to be the agents by whom He gathers His elect by whom He collects the bride for
His Son. Jesus even came and said, "The Son of Man
has come to seek and to save that which was lost," Luke 19:10, that's why He came, to
seek and save the lost. And He has passed the baton to us and we do
the seeking from the human viewpoint, He does the seeking and the saving from the divine
side. This is consistent with God's nature from
Adam and Eve. In the Garden where it says in chapter 3 of
Genesis that God was seeking them, saying, "Adam, where are you?" From Genesis where that occurs to the last
invitation in the last chapter of Revelation, Revelation 22:17 where Scripture says, "Whoever
wills, let him come...come." God all through has been seeking and all of
Scripture is the painting of that mural up until the end of Scripture and we continue
to paint it by the power of the Holy Spirit until it's fully complete. But the goal of human history is so that God
can redeem men and women to take them to glory as a bride for His Son to serve and honor
and worship His Son forever and ever and ever. The church doesn't have a mission department,
the church is a mission. You're not chosen or elected to be members
of a mission committee, you're a missionary, it's just a question of where and how effective
or how ineffective. There is no escaping this. There is no gift of evangelism. There is no gift of missionary. We are all responsible for this. The church is composed of missionaries, the
church is a mission in the world. The world is an alien culture and we are here
in a foreign land, we are citizens of heaven, we are left here. Our citizenship is there. We are left here and God even endures our
stumbling worship and our stumbling obedience and our stumbling prayer and our stumbling
effort at holiness and all the rest to leave us here because there's one thing we can do
here we'll never do in heaven and that is evangelize the lost. So we're all missionaries. We need then to learn the implications that
are laid upon us in this passage before us. Now as we look at these verses, they're really
monumental. And again, with an economy of words, our Lord
says everything that needs to be said to sum up the essence of the gospel. And there are several elements of this gospel
mandate that I want to talk to you about this morning and then tonight. It is biblical, our Lord says, it is historical,
it is transformational, it is Christological, it is personal and it is supernatural. Now those are the components of the gospel
that are laid out by our Lord. And it's critical to lay them out because
He's essentially saying to them, "I'm leaving,". This is the great passing of the baton and
they need to have it right and they need to do it right. They need to be obedient to this commission. And they were. And so were many others generation after generation,
after generation and so are many of us. Now we're going to look at those points, but
before we do, some general observations that I want to make for you. The book ends having proven what it claimed
at the beginning. What did it claim at the beginning? Let's go back to the beginning. Luke chapter 1, verse 35, the angel comes
to Mary. The angel says this, "The Holy Spirit will
come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you and for that reason the
holy child shall be called the Son of God." The promise of the angel would be that Mary
would have a child who would be the Son of God. The rest of this history proves that did happen. Mary had a baby when she was a virgin who
was the Son of God. It was proven by His life, His miracles, His
power over demons, His teaching and by His resurrection. He was declared to be the Son of God by the
resurrection from the dead, Paul says. What the book promised was that it was going
to be a history of the Son of God. And when you come to the end, it has proven
to be exactly that. Furthermore, in the first chapter, Zechariah,
the priest filled with the Holy Spirit, who was the father of John the Baptist, is given
a wonderful, wonderful prophecy concerning the coming Messiah and He says in verse 69
that the Messiah who will accomplish redemption for His people is a horn of salvation...a
horn of salvation. In other words, the angel says to Mary He's
going to be the Son of God; the Holy Spirit says to Zechariah He is going to be the one
who provides salvation. Down in verse 77, "He will give the people
the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy
of our God." So the book begins with a promise that the
one who comes will be the Son of God, that He will provide salvation which is defined
as the forgiveness of sins. That's what the book promised, that's what
the book delivered. When you come to chapter 24, you can go back
to our text, indeed, Jesus Christ came, the Son of God suffered, died, rose again the
third day and provided forgiveness of sins in His name. So the book ends having proven what it promised
at the beginning. Since He died and rose again, He is the Son
of God, He is the Lord, He is the Redeemer, salvation is accomplished, forgiveness of
sin is available. And now you go tell the world. And by the way, Luke moves quickly to his
conclusion. Verse 43 ended the night Jesus arose when
He met with His disciples. On that first day of the week, the third day
after He was crucified, you remember He appeared to the disciples that night. And to prove that He was literally physically
alive, He took a fish and ate it. And then Luke moves in verse 44 to the final
commission and the ascension. Luke tells us nothing about the forty days,
nothing at all. Jesus made many appearances to His own during
the 40 days, at least ten of them are indicated in the New Testament. Luke doesn't tell us anything about them in
his history. However, in the book of Acts which is Luke's
second volume of history, which tells the story of how the Apostles and the disciples
obeyed the Great Commission, he opens the book of Acts in chapter 1 by telling us about
the Lord's appearances during those 40 days and thus he overlaps and interlocks these
two histories. So he comes all the way to the ascension here
and then when he starts Acts, he backs up, describes what happened in the forty days
and retells the ascension in detail so that this is one history overlapping and interlocking. It's one story and it's a story you will notice
from verse 44 that goes clear back to Genesis, this one great vast unfolding mural of redemptive
history. So the words of our Lord here in verse 44,
very likely spoken at the end of forty days. Luke 1 tells us it was forty days that Jesus
appeared to His disciples before He ascended. It's not unusual for Bible writers to vary
their approaches. John gives us details about our Lord's appearance
in Galilee during those 40 days. If you want to know about the Lord appearing
to the disciples, the most interesting description of it is in John 21. But John tells us nothing about the ascension. Matthew tells us nothing about the ascension
either. Doesn't even mention it. But he tells us more about the Great Commission. And this is the beauty of Scripture. You put it all together and you get the whole
picture. So these final words are designed to launch
the history of the proclamation of the gospel. You say, "Well how does it relate to us?" Well the baton just keeps passing generation
to generation to generation to generation. This is our time to be obedient to this commission. Now in order for us to be obedient, we need
to understand the gospel, right? And that's why you have here this composite
summary of the necessary components of understanding. Let's start with the first one. The gospel is biblical as to its foundation. The gospel is biblical as to its foundation. Obviously the big issue in dealing with the
Jews, and they were going to have to begin in Jerusalem to preach this gospel, they were
going to have to start there, as it says at the end of verse 47, that's where they were. This was very, very difficult because the
Jews didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah. The Jews had seen Jesus as utterly disqualified
to be the Messiah because He was the enemy of their religious system, their false religious
system which they thought was the true. Jesus was killed, rejected by the leaders,
died, disqualified, had no army, triumphed over nothing. They had a...they had a theology of Messiah
that only included the triumph and the glory, they didn't have a theology that included
the suffering and the dying and rising again. They had totally missed that part. So now the disciples and the Apostles are
going to have the responsibility to start in Jerusalem to overturn everything the people
believed, to change everything. And they were going to have to convince the
Jews that Jesus is the Messiah, how would you do that? You can't use the New Testament, there isn't
any. And the one thing they did revere was the
Old Testament, so what did they have to use? The Old Testament. But they had shown a lack of understanding
of the Old Testament. They had shown a severe lack of understanding
of most of what Jesus said. Even when He said it to them face-to-face
in very simple clear straight-forward terms. They had been subject all their life to a
rather inadequate if not downright wrong interpretation of the Old Testament at the hands of their
rabbis and so they were in no position to rightly interpret the Old Testament unless
somebody helped them. They needed a total correction of their theology
and their hermeneutics. So what is so very, very important is this. They needed to understand that Christianity
was not a disruption of Judaism, it wasn't a new religion, it was continuity, it was
the same great redemptive plan of God rolling through history and that Judaism without Christ
is a false religion because Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. And so in order to get the gospel in its right
context, in order to understand redemptive continuity and redemptive history, you've
got to go back. And that's exactly what He does. He says to them in verse 44, "These are My
words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you." All the time He had been with them in Galilee,
in Judea, all the years, the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, He had told them things
they should have known, they should have understood. Among the things that He told them were the
details that He was going to die, be arrested, be delivered, be crucified, rise again the
third day. I don't know how many times He said it, maybe
hundreds. It's recorded many times in the New Testament
when He said it. But He must have repeated it often and they
never really understood it. And I can show you that. If you go back to chapter 9 for a moment,
you're way back before Jesus even heads toward Jerusalem, way back early in His ministry,
chapter 9 verse 22, they're just figuring out who He is. Peter says in verse 20, "You're the Christ
of God," this is parallel to Matthew 16 where Peter says You're the Son of God. He warned them and instructed them, "Don't
tell this to anyone, saying the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the
elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, be raised up the third day." This could have been a year before it happened. You say, "Was that the only time He told them?" He told them this...He must have told them
again and again. Go down to verse 44, He says this, "Let these
words sink into your ears." You don't say that unless you've repeated
yourself enough that they ought to be getting it. "For the Son of Man is going to be delivered
into the hands of men." He knew there was resistance to that and the
resistance is indicated in verse 45, they didn't understand the statement, it was concealed
from them so they couldn't perceive it and they were afraid to ask Him about it. They didn't want to know. What is He saying? We don't want that information. We're in the triumph zone here, we don't want
that information about suffering death and so forth. It doesn't fit our Messianic theology. Remember I told you last time they had a very
partial theology of Messiah, only triumph and glory. In chapter 18 of Luke and it's many months
later now and they're in Judea, takes the Twelve aside in verse 31, this time it's the
Twelve. And He said to them, and I'm sure there was
a lot of emphasis on this because how many times He had said it before now we could never
know, "Behold, we are going to Jerusalem and all things which are written through the prophets
about the Son of Man will be accomplished." He says it again. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. He will be mocked and mistreated and spit
on and scourged and killed and the third day He'll rise again. And every bit of that is prophesied in the
Old Testament, every detail of it. And the same reaction...verse 34, "The disciples
understood none of these things." Why? "He that is convinced against his will is
unconvinced still." We don't want that information, we reject
that information. That's not consistent with our Messianic theology. The meaning of the statement then is hidden
from them....didn't comprehend the things that were said. This was such a common message that...look
at Luke 24 verse 6 to 8, the women...the women, now we're not talking about the men, we're
not talking about the Apostles, the Twelve, these are women. They come to the tomb. They're terrified because there's a blazing
angel there talking to them, two of them actually, and they are terrified. Verse 5, "They bow their faces to the ground
and the angel says to them, 'Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He's not here, He's risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was
still in Galilee saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful
men and be crucified and the third day rise again?' And they remembered His words." So look, He said this so often, even the women
knew it who were not in the inside circle. This isn't something He said once or twice
or three times in some private situation. He kept saying it and saying it and it's exactly
the way the Old Testament laid it out. Now we'll go to our text in Luke 24 and verse
44 and He says, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you." What words? "That all things which are written about Me
in the Law of Moses in the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." That's a three-fold division of the Old Testament,
by the way. It is the Law of Moses, Torah, Genesis to
Deuteronomy, the Jews called the Torah. It is the Prophets. The Prophets is the Hebrew Nevi'im . There are the former prophets and the latter
prophets. The former prophets would be Joshua on, which
is the book after Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, Joshua throughout all the books of history,
that's the former prophets. The latter prophets would be the major prophets,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Lamentations, and the minor prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos,
Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi...that's the whole
Old Testament. So Jesus is saying, "Look, everything that
is happening I told you. I've been telling you. I've been repeating it again and again. Must be fulfilled and will be fulfilled." That is basic to the gospel, dear friends. When you proclaim the gospel, you must understand
that this is not some intrusion into human history. This is not some late religion that just got
developed like the liberals say, Christianity popped up in the first century out of nowhere
and was an apostate form of Judaism. Not at all. It is the one great mural that is painted
by God that sweeps through all of redemptive history until all is done and this whole universe
is destroyed and replaced by the new heaven and the new earth. And it is with perfect divine continuity that
this is taking place. We must then be able to understand that. How else could they start at Jerusalem to
convince people Jesus was the Messiah if they couldn't prove it from the Old Testament Scripture? If they couldn't compare the details that
happened in His living and His dying and His rising with the prophecies of the Old Testament,
they couldn't prove it. But they could prove it because it was there. So their evangelism was scriptural evangelism. This is basic to the gospel. The Old Testament promised the Messiah would
come and the Messiah would be from the line of Abraham. The Old Testament, Genesis 12, promised that
He would come through the tribe of Judah, Genesis 49, that He would come through the
line of David, 2 Samuel chapter 7. That He would be born of a virgin, Isaiah
7:14. Born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2. That He would be betrayed by a familiar friend
as the psalmist puts it. That He would be beaten, spit on, beard pulled,
gambling would take place for His clothing. He would be pierced Zechariah 12, Psalm 22,
Psalm 69. His death would be vicarious, Isaiah 53. And He would rise from the dead, Isaiah 53
to the end of the chapter, Psalm 16:8 to 11...many other details. The Christ of gospel history did not invent
Himself, nor is He the invention of a little group of people in the first century. He is the unmistakable fulfillment of divine
prophecy. That's at the heart...that's at the foundation
of the gospel. So we say that if you're going to carry out
the mandate of the gospel and fulfill your mission and it is your mission, you must understand
that as to its foundation, the gospel is Old Testament biblical. And so, it was time now for them to come out
of the darkness and the doubt. Remember, I read you in Matthew some of them
doubted. It's time now to come out of the doubt. I don't know whether that doubt was about
something in the Old Testament or the connection with Christ, I can't imagine that. It may have been doubt about their responsibility
to preach it, but whatever the doubts may have been, perhaps they were different doubts,
it's time to dispel them all, verse 45, then He opened their minds to understand the Scripture. I think He did it supernaturally in part,
but I also think He did it by explaining it...by explaining it. He did what He did for the two on the road
to Emmaus, right? Back in verse 25, He said, "O foolish men
and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary for the
Messiah to suffer these things and then to enter in to His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets
He explained them concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." He did it again. That was just for two of them. The rest knew He was alive. But they still didn't understand the connection
between all the events that had happened in His dying and His rising and they're Old Testament
prophecies. So He did what He did for the two on the road
to Emmaus. He gave them a sweeping Messianic interpretation
of the Old Testament. Oh the effectiveness was powerful...powerful. They got it. I mean, they absolutely got it. And the book of Acts proves it because the
first time you hear one of them preach is in chapter 2, Day of Pentecost, Peter, verse
14, Acts 2, stands up with all the eleven around him and he raises his voice and says,
"Men of Judea and all you who believe who live in Jerusalem, and all you who live in
Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to My words," listen everybody. And then He gives His text, Joel chapter 2,
verses 28 to 32. He quotes Joel and says, "You have just seen
a fulfillment of that." And then in verse 22 he gives his sermon on
Jesus. A man delivered over by the predetermined
plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed Him to a cross by the hands of godless men
and put Him to death but God raised Him up. And then he goes right to Psalm 16 and shows
the prophecy of the resurrection in Psalm 16. They got it. They knew how to do it. They knew how to evangelize the Jews. You make the point...this is what the Old
Testament says, this is what Jesus did, it is unmistakable that He is the Messiah. And then just for good measure, throughout
that whole sermon he throws in a few other Old Testament quotes, verse 30, verse 31,
verse 34, verse 35 and I say he got it. You preach from the Scriptures Christ. In the fourth chapter he says in verse 10,
Peter again filled with the Holy Spirit, verse 10, "Let it be known to all of and all people
of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God
raised from the dead, by this name this man stands here before you in good health." And then he says, Psalm 118:22, "He's the
stone which was rejected by you, the builders, and become the head of the corner, the cornerstone." Just as Psalm 118:22 prophesied. This continued to be the pattern of their
preaching. They draw it out of the Old Testament. You see it in chapter 4 later where David
is quoted from the Psalms. You see a good illustration of it is in chapter...well
there's some in chapter 7, Stephen, chapter 8 also, I love this, "Philip, not an apostle,"
so the baton is passing to a deacon in the church, and this guy's reading Isaiah 53,
"He was led as a sheep to slaughter...verse 32...and a lamb before its shearers is silent,"
doesn't open his mouth, "in humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation for his life
is removed from the earth." "And the eunuch answered Philip and said,
'Tell me, who is this prophet talking about.' Philip opened his mouth and beginning from
Scripture, from this Scripture he preached...whom?...Jesus." They got it and the Apostles passed it on
to the deacons in the early church. And it became the way you preach. You find it was the way even Paul preached. Chapter 17, "When they had traveled through
Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica and there was a synagogue of the Jews there. So as Paul was accustomed to doing, he went
to the Jewish synagogue. What did he do? For three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from...what?...the
Scriptures." What would that be? There was no New Testament, that's the Old
Testament. And he used the Old Testament to explain and
give evidence or proof that the Messiah had to suffer and rise again from the dead...and
then he said...and this Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is that Messiah. Look at the facts. History, prophecy meet in Him. So, back to our text, our Lord took the same
Scripture that He had referred to many times before, Scripture that was very familiar to
them and rolled out its pure meaning and opened their minds to understand that it all pointed
to Him. And I think He took them Scripture by Scripture
by Scripture by Scripture by Scripture by Scripture and I don't doubt that the Scriptures
you see them using in the book of Acts were Scriptures that He taught them. That's why Acts and Luke link because it's
the history of their obedience. Now I'm sure they had the burning heart experience
because verse 32 says, the two on the road to Emmaus had the burning heart experience. They even commented to each other, verse 32
of Luke 24, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road
while He was explaining to us the Scripture." What's the burning heart experience? It's the experience of joy and the need to
proclaim. They had that experience, I'm sure, too. I'm sure their hearts were so fired up they
couldn't contain their joy. For the first time, they got it. They understood. It was their eureka moment. And that was part of the energy that prompted
them to go. In fact, they were so energetic, I think they
were so fired up, I think their hearts were so hot to proclaim the message that the Lord
has to say to them, verse 49, "Stay where you are." Whoa...He's kind of restrained them, they're
ready to go but they can't go because zeal won't do it, you're going to need the power
from on high. And we'll get to that tonight. Blaise Pascal on November 23 in 1654 had an
experience of biblical clarity which he described as the most memorable spiritual experience
of his entire life. It was such an overwhelming understanding
with clarity of the Scripture that he wrote down one word in his journal...fire. And then below it he wrote, "Joy, joy, joy,
joy, tears of joy." And in another place he wrote several times
in large letters, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." He must have been somewhere near the latitude
of Emmaus spiritually when he had that experience. It's the burning heart that grasps the connection
between the Scripture and the fulfillment in Christ. That's where the gospel begins, folks. It is not an intrusion into Judaism, it is
not another religion than Judaism. Judaism without Christ is a false religion,
it is apostate, it is a defection from the truth. Christianity with Judaism is incomplete because
we'll never be able to prove to them that Jesus is their Messiah unless we can prove
to them that He matches all the prophecies in the Old Testament. Start in Jerusalem, that's how you start. Everywhere in the book of Acts, they went
to preach...every time they preached to Jews they started from the Old Testament Scripture. Second point I want to give you, you need
at least two this morning. The gospel is biblical as to its foundation. Secondly, its historical as to its accomplishment...it
is historical as to its accomplishment. It is not myth, it is not legend, it is history. Verse 46, "He said to them, 'Thus it is written
that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day." And, folks, I might say it's obviously implied
there that He did die and did rise again the third day. That is attested by history. In fact, some say there's no event or fact
of ancient history in existence that is better attested then the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. And we're not talking about a religion that
was invented by a bunch of first-century religious nuts. Jesus did not invent Himself either. This is not something they just made up. The record of history is absolutely undeniable. Some of you may have heard of a form of theology
called neoorthodoxy. Sounds okay, new orthodoxy, you think it would
be new and orthodox. But in a sense, that is an oxymoron. If it's orthodox, it can't be new. But the reason it got that name was because
of a man named Karl Barth. This is a name among many names among dead
German theologians who got it wrong that you would never know if people didn't resurrect
their bad theology and then argue with it. But they do. Karl Barth was living under the tremendous
impact of theological liberalism in Germany, of the higher-critical theory which debunked
the Bible of all that was miraculous, stripped Jesus of His deity and you name it. And Karl Barth thought that when you're done
doing this, you've got nothing. You've got nothing but a philosophy, humanism,
that's all you have if you've just taken all the supernatural out of the Scripture. So he said, "We need to put it back." So neoorthodoxy was Karl Barth's effort to
put back the supernatural into the Bible. He wrote books doing that, that's why he was
called a neoorthodox, it was an attempt to get back to orthodoxy. Karl Barth didn't defect from orthodoxy to
liberalism; he defected from liberalism back to orthodoxy. The problem was, he didn't get far enough
because if you said to him, "Karl, do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus from
the dead?" He would say yes. Second question, "Karl, do you think it happened
in history?" No, it happened in heilsgeschichte, it happened
not in historii, the German with the two i's at the end, but in heilsgeschichte. It happened in Holy Ghost history. What is Holy Ghost history? It's a figment of your imagination. They want the resurrection to be a mystical
reality, a spiritual reality, but not a physical reality. It is important to ground the gospel in physical
history, in a literal death and a literal resurrection of the literal Lord Jesus. Thus it is written and thus it happened. There's a wonderful testimony, the summation
of testimony to that in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians where the Apostle Paul says
that, "I delivered to you...verse 3...as a first importance what I also received that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." Again here he's in Corinth, long after the
great commission and he's preaching that the death of Christ connected to Old Testament
Scripture. And that He was buried. And that He was raised on the third day according
to the Scriptures. And that is the third day is even depicted
by the type of Jonah who was three days in the belly of the fish and Jesus made that
connection. Paul goes on to say that He appeared to Peter,
He appeared to the Twelve. He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one
time. He appeared to James, appeared to the Apostles. Last, to me...He appeared to me also. This is history. Jesus is not some mystical figure. As I said last week, it's not enough to say
it doesn't really matter that He arose from the dead as long as His Spirit is alive. It does matter. Christianity is not false religion, all other
religion is false religion, all other religion is a fabrication, it's an illusion. This is true history. Messianic credentials become gospel elements. The gospel as to its foundation is biblical,
as to its accomplishment is historical. I'm going to introduce the third point. The gospel is transformational as to its provision...it
is transformational as to its provision. What does it do? Why is it so important to believe that Jesus
died and rose again the third day? Why is it so important to believe He's the
Son of God? Why is it so important to believe that He's
the Messiah of Israel, Savior of the world, Redeemer? Why is that so important? I'll tell you why it's important. Verse 47, "So that repentance for the forgiveness
of sins can be proclaimed in His name." What is the provision that transforms? It is the forgiveness of sins. The gospel message to be proclaimed across
the world, folks, is just one simple message: repent and ask for the forgiveness of sins
in the name of Christ. That's it. We say, "You know, we want people to be saved." And the obvious question is saved from what? From their sins and the punishment of those
sins that is everlasting in hell. This is our only message. We don't have a social message. There are social implications in the gospel
because godly people behave differently. We don't have an economic message. We don't have an educational message. We have one message, forgiveness of sins. That's it. And that's what was laid out at the beginning. Let me show you something, just quickly, and
we'll end with this, but this is a good place to make a break. Back in chapter 1 verse 77, I read this to
you earlier, in the prophecy of Zechariah which sets the course of the book, He is coming...this
Son of God, the Messiah...to give to His people the knowledge of salvation. Okay? How they going to get that? How are they going to be saved? "By the forgiveness of their sins because
of the tender mercy of our God." The Christian gospel is this, God is merciful,
God will forgive your sins and that provision is in Christ. That's the way it starts in the book of Luke
and that's the way it ends. So when John the Baptist comes along in chapter
3 who is the forerunner to the Messiah and the child born to Zechariah, verse 3 of chapter
3, "He came into all the district around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for
the forgiveness of sins." Or chapter 4, Jesus comes on the scene. Jesus is preaching repentance. And He gives one message in Nazareth in the
synagogue and in verse 18 He quotes from Isaiah 61, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. He's anointed Me to preach the gospel to the
poor, sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, those who are captive to sin, sight to the
blind, those that are blinded by sin, set free the oppressed, those that are oppressed
by sin." Chapter 5 verse 20, they drop a man through
the roof, remember that? He needs to be healed and Jesus heals him
and in verse 20 He says, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you." That's why He came, to forgive sins. The healing was only to prove that He was
the Son of God. The mission was to forgive sins. "The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason
saying, 'Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?'" They were right about that. They were wrong about the fact that He was
not God, He was. In the seventh chapter, this woman is showering
Jesus with her affection and washing His feet with her tears and her hair and in verse 47,
"For this reason I say to you, 'Your sins which are many have been forgiven, for she
loved much. He who is forgiven little, loves little.'" And then He said to her, "Your sins have been
forgiven." "Those who were reclining at the table with
Him began to say to themselves, 'Who is this man who even forgives sins?' He said to the woman, 'Your faith has saved
you, go in peace.'" He hadn't yet died the death that provided
that forgiveness but He applied that forgiveness before His death through all of redemptive
history. It was always about forgiveness, never about
anything but forgiveness. He said when the disciples came and said,
"How should we pray?" He said, "Pray this way," chapter 11 verse
2, "Father, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread and
forgive us our sins." And then when He was hanging on the cross
in Luke 23:34 He said, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." So, when the Apostles and the Disciples were
dispatched, when they were sent out, what was their message? Social gospel? Fix the world? End poverty? Injustice? Crime? No...no. Walter Judd, the old congressman from years
back in the U.S. Congress who had been many, many years of
his life a missionary in China said, "You either believe that you can change a society
and it will change men, or you believe that you change men on the inside and they'll change
a society." That's the Christian view. We have only one message, the forgiveness
of sins. And they got it...they got it. Let's go to Acts and show you how, these two
interlocking, overlapping histories. Peter gets up on the Day of Pentecost using
Old Testament passages to prove that Jesus is the Messiah who would die and rise the
third day, Peter speaks in verse 38. He comes to the end of his sermon, Acts 2:38,
"Peter said to them, 'Repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for
the forgiveness of your sins.'" He got it, preached forgiveness by repentance. "For this is the promise for you and your
children and all who are afar off." It's a promise of forgiveness. Peter's still preaching in chapter 5. Another place, another time, Peter and the
Apostles all say to those who want to silence them from the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin
again, "We must obey God rather than men," verse 30, "The God of our fathers raised up
Jesus whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right
hand as a prince and a Savior...oh, I love this...to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness
of sins." Chapter 10...chapter 10, Peter again, ha-ha,
verse 40, let's pick it up there. This ties so well with the end of Luke. "God raised Him up the third day, granted
that He become visible, not to all people...nope...but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by
God, that is to us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead," remember
they gave Him a piece of fish and He ate it and He ate breakfast with them in Galilee? And then this, here's Peter looking back,
remembering the great commission. "And He ordered us to preach to the people
and solemnly to testify that this is the one, He's the one who has been appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead, of Him all the prophets bear witness that through
His name every one who believes in Him receives a happy life, positive feelings." What? "Forgiveness of sins." There's never been any other message. Peter got it, wouldn't you say? He made the connection completely. Understood the reason Scripture was being
fulfilled in Christ, the necessity of that, made the connections between the Scriptures
and the things that happened in the life of Christ, bought into the mandate, knew what
he was supposed to do, proclaim that Jesus is in fact the one talked about by the prophets
and that the message is simple, "Forgiveness of sins." In the thirteenth chapter, Paul...this is
really a great message and he borrows also from the Old Testament Psalm 2 and Psalm 16,
so he's doing what the original Apostles did. Now remember, he's kind of an out of time
Apostle, so we're moving to another generation now and he's doing the same thing the others
did. He stands up, sons of Abraham's family and
those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent to those who
live in Jerusalem and so forth. "Though they found...verse 28...no ground
for putting Him to death." Isaiah said that, by the way, that He would
be the innocent one. They did. They put Him on a cross. Verse 29, "When they had carried out all that
was written concerning Him," there it is again, isn't it? They carried out all that was written concerning
Him. They understood the connection, then they
took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead and for many
days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones
who are now His witnesses to the people and we preach to you the good news of the promise
made to the fathers." And what is this good news, by the way? What is this good news? Go down, please, to verse 38, here's the good
news, "God raised Him, God didn't let Him undergo decay therefore let it be known to
you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you." There's no other message, folks. This is the message. Jesus said this is what you preach. Forgiveness of sins, however, in His name,
that's a perfect place to stop for tonight. Come back and we will complete this. Father, again it's a constant joy to see the
power, consistency, clarity of Your Word. Thrilling, our hearts are burning within us
as we understand this. Help us, Lord, to take the baton in this generation
and be faithful to use the Scripture now, the Old and the New, to prove that Jesus is
the Son of God, the Savior, the Redeemer, to tell people far and wide that if they repent,
there is forgiveness of sin in His name. May we live to proclaim that great truth. May You use us as instruments of salvation
in Your hand as we faithfully proclaim it, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.
